


Six Feet Over

by freshia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A little bit Shiro/Allura but i don't wanna stick it in the tag yknow, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Ghost Keith, Ghost Roommate AU, Humor, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-12 12:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 47,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7934026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshia/pseuds/freshia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And, right, of course. He hadn't told Pidge—or Hunk, actually, who was sitting on the other side of the table from him—because somehow “I see dead people” just doesn't quite have the same effect that it surely had before 1999. Go figure."</p><p>Lance Sanchez sees ghosts. Lance Sanchez also tries his best to avoid ghosts, until he literally can't, because his new apartment is inhabited by one very confused ghost named Keith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Haunting of Lance Sanchez

**Author's Note:**

> Lance/Pine Car Freshener otp

For the most part, Lance tried to live with no regrets.

This was, partly, because it was a good philosophy in general, and also partly because-

Well, he got to see what happened if you _died_ with too many regrets.

And in this particularly instance, he was looking at it. Er, _her_ in this case—sitting on a man's lap, gently stroking his chin stubble in a coffee shop while he taps away at his laptop, reaching to scratch the spot she was fondling every few seconds like he had some kind of irritating itch.

 _Christ_.

People who thought that a comment section on the internet was the ultimate testament to how far people would go when given anonymity, had _nothing_ on the stuff he had seen.

Lance jerks his head to the side when the girl glances his way— _shit_ , had he made eye contact??--only to be staring directly into the face of one very miffed-looking Pidge.

“Hi Space Cadet, come back down to Earth yet?”

And, right, of course. He hadn't told Pidge—or Hunk, actually, who was sitting on the other side of the table from him—because somehow “ _I see dead people_ ” just doesn't quite have the same effect that it surely had before 1999, go figure.

(Also, the last time he decided to tell them he had the impeccable timing of choosing _Halloween_ , and no one takes anything you say seriously when you're in a hot dog costume. The only response he had gotten to, “Guys, I can talk to ghosts,” was a sarcastic “Yeah Lance, we all remember the time you tried to bargain with the five-year-olds in white bedsheets for a Snickers.”)

Lance blinks, before laughing maybe a bit _too_ loudly. His eyes dart back to the girl, who's lost interest and is back to gently stroking the dude's not-beard. _Phew_.

“Oops, sorry. Just thinking about, uh, my new place.”

Pidge snorts, tapping their fingers on the table in front of the trio. “We help you move and you repay us by offering to buy us coffee and then ignoring us the rest of the time. How surprisingly thoughtful of you.”

“Hey!” Lance grins, throwing his arms around the two of them. Lance, Pidge, Hunk, the unstoppable trio. “Couldn't have done it without you. And you know that as soon as I get settled in, it's house party all day _everyday_.”

“Dude, your complex is full of like sixty-somethings.” Hunk points out, as Lance releases them and leans back. “Don't old people go to sleep at... I dunno, 9PM?”

“Yeah. But you know what else old people do? Turn off their hearing aids after 9PM. They won't even notice.” Unlikely, but Lance will deal with the noise complaints as they come in. He knows for a _fact_ that landlords don't do anything about it until at _least_ your third offense.

“You're like a fountain of misinformation.” Pidge frowns. “You're going to last like, three months there before they kick you out.” a sigh, long and drawn out. “Impending homelessness aside, are you sure you have it from here? You still need to arrange everything, and we can come back tomorrow...”

“Nah, I'm good.” More like _great_. Lance had never lived alone before; and he was totally ready to just hang around naked on his couch. “You guys start class tomorrow and while you're basking in the smell of freshly-printed syllabuses, I'll be at home, _enjoying_ my new freedom.”

“Until you have to go to work.” Hunk helpfully points out. “You know, I don't think classes will be the same without you, man.”

Lance shrugs. “Life marches on! And _my_ life has led me down a road with less student debt _and_ less stress. Win-win all around.”

“It wouldn't be stressful if you had actually done your homework. And also, maybe, not failed so many classes that they put you on academic probation.” Pidge says.

“Tried to put me on academic probation. Key word: _tried_.”

“Dropping out because you were a semester and a half behind does _not_ give you a leg up on the school!”

Lance opens his mouth to respond but Hunk clears his throat loudly, cutting him off. “Guys. Let's talk something a little more happy, on our last day of freedom?”

And like that, the subject is dropped.

Their conversation turns to nothing of substance after, switching from topic to topic while Lance keeps his gaze _firmly_ away from the chick across the cafe. Avoiding staring is something he's become excellent at, because there's nothing to quite draw suspicion to your own sanity like locking your gaze onto something (or, in his case, usually some _one_ ) that isn't visible to anyone else.

Out of the corner of his eyes he sees the guy that the stalker-ghost was hanging around close up his laptop and slink out of the cafe. Seeing an opportunity, Lance slumps back into his seat, rolling his neck.

“Well, it's been lovely chatting with you lads, but I have a brand new _cozy_ house to go hang out in.”

“Sure, if six carboard boxes stacked into the living room is your idea of cozy.” Pidge deadpans. Lance wiggles an index finger in their direction.

“Which is exactly why I have to go start making my bachelor pad now. The only cardboard boxes that should be littering my apartment floor, are old pizza boxes.”

Hunk makes a disgusted noise. “Ew, dude.”

“Make that three months that I talked about earlier two.” Pidge says, before grabbing their empty coffee cup and chucking it toward a trashcan. It lands, dead center, and Pidge raises both hands to receive a double high-five from both Lance and Hunk.

“ _Nice_. And hey, I'll throw out the trash when it starts getting too smelly! I have it on very good authority that girls don't like the smell of stale pizza, so you know. Can't let it get too out of control.” Lance fingerguns toward the both of them, scooting his chair back and standing up. “But I _also_ have to assert the fact that my place is a _bro_ den. Hunk understands. Right?”

“Uh,” Hunk blinks at Lance's expectant smile. “I'll... Bring by some air freshener as a housewarming gift later.”

“You wound me, man. I thought you'd be on my side here.” Lance huffs. “And also, don't bother with it, I already bought 15 car-fresheners. You know, the ones shaped like trees. I'm going to hang them around the apartment, and my place is going to smell like a _forest_. Pine fresh.”

Pidge makes a sound like they're dying.

 

* * *

 

As it turns out, moving furniture around by yourself is surprisingly difficult, even with as little as Lance had. Most of the boxes he had were clothes—and hair products—and one box was even stuffed with what little decorations he had accumulated while living at the dorms. He had a small couch, one TV that he forgot to buy a stand for so he shoved some empty cardboard boxes together under it and hoped for the best, and his old mini-fridge that he was going to use as a makeshift end table.

Two birds, one stone, baby. Pull a drink out, and set it right on top. _Too easy_.

A few hours and two redbulls later, his _beautiful_ new home was furnished. Even the mini-fridge was stocked. He still hadn't bought any real food for the actual fridge, which was in the kitchen, but eh. _Priorities_.

Triumphantly, Lance flops onto his new couch and sighs, eyes closing.

“Home, sweet _sweet_ home.” he kisses his thumb and forefinger with a loud _mwah_ , shaking it into the air like a chef introducing his masterpiece.

But wait, something was missing.

Something important.

It only takes Lance fifteen whole seconds of relaxation to realize.

 _The car-fresheners_.

Of _course_ , how could Lance have _forgotten_? The five packages of three tiny-trees each, waiting at the bottom of a shopping bag he had tossed into the corner for later. He could practically _taste_ the overpowering scent of _Pine Fresh_ already, which was exactly how he imagined the color green smelled. Fifteen of those bad boys all at once would be enough to give any weaker soul a massive headache, but Lance was no weakling. No, he had the essence of a lumberjack on Christmas morning inside of him.

 _Bring on the Pine_.

He sits up, ready to make his apartment smell like his _abuela_ 's old Cadillac when he catches something out of the corner of his eye.

It's a guy. Standing there, staring at him like he's totally unamused.

There's a beat where nothing happens. The world is frozen, just for a single moment. And then--

Understandably, Lance screams. Kicking the back of the couch where he was previously sprawled out, he manages to tumble off of it and, in an absolutely _incredible_ recovery that he's sure would astound millions and go viral on YouTube had it been captured on camera, hops to his feet and makes the most intimidating karate pose he can think of.

“Wh-Who are you and how did you get in here, please answer me honestly so that if I don't die today I can tell the landlord to change the locks!”

And, to his credit, the other guy looks just as shocked. He blinks a few times, glances behind him like he expects someone else to be standing there, and then looks back toward Lance with a confused deer-in-headlights look.

“... Me?” the stranger points to his chest, almost hesitantly, and Lance drops his pose. Just a little.

“... Um. _No_ , the other uninvited stranger standing in my living room. Wait, did you live here before or something, because if so you didn't leave anything behind, I'd know since I pretty much...” he trails off, watching the other guy become more and more frazzled as he runs a hand through his dark hair. Lance cocks his head. “Dude. You okay?”

“You can see me?”

And then it clicks, suddenly, in Lance's brain.

And then, he kind of panics.

To be honest, if Lance was given this gift—this gift to see _the invisible undead_ —to become some sort of medium, or to use this talent to help others, he was kind of shitty at it. As in, it was a big, huge waste of God or _whoever's_ time because Lance hadn't talked to any ghosts since he was seven years old and his mom just thought he had a very active imagination. As a matter of fact, Lance spent a good portion of his time actively avoiding this very situation because:

 

  1. It looked like he was talking to himself, if anyone ever saw him,

  2. Dead people were kind of downers, and he tended to try and surround himself with positivity and,

  3. He was totally and completely unqualified for anything supernatural, despite being born with this amazing ability that really wasn't all that amazing in practice.




 

And so, with all of this information put through a very special thought process, the next thing Lance says is:

“Dude, did you like die in the 80's or something because you totally have a mullet going on, just to let you know.”

The guy is still looking at him like he can't quite believe what he's seeing, which seems pretty ironic to Lance considering it should probably be the other way around. He seems caught between scowling at the comment or continuing to stare at Lance, his eyebrows kind of twitching like they can't make up their mind.

It's a little amusing, actually.

But beyond that he's making no sort of action to indicate that he's going to respond, and from what Lance remembers about talking to ghosts when he was a kid, he probably doesn't even _know_ when he died.

So, Lance scratches the back of his head and at least tries to seem friendly toward the other.

“Well, uh, do you at least remember your name?”

He kind of stares at Lance, warily, like he's still not quite sure this is happening—or maybe it's that he doesn't trust him, who knows. But finally, he responds.

“Keith.”

“Okay, well, great. Keith. That's a start. So, uh...”

Keith continues to stare at him. Lance stares back. It's a very moving conversation.

“... So, how long have you been here? I mean, since this is now sort of _my_ place and all...” he tries, just to get something beyond pure silence between them. Keith shrugs.

“I don't know.”

Lance's eye twitches.

“Okay. Uh, look. You're not exactly giving me a lot to go on here, and while it was great meeting you...“ he trails off and clears his throat as Keith gazes at him coolly. “Well. I'm sure there are other ghosts around the area that could probably help you more, or something, or maybe looking around outside could jog some memories--”

“I can't leave.”

Keith interrupts him, darting his dark eyes from Lance's face to look at the living room door. Lance follows his line of sight, glancing from Keith, to the door, then back again.

“You can't _leave_?”

 “No.” Keith still isn't looking at him. Lance frowns.

“Like... What, are you scared? I can show you a map--”

“I'm not _scared_.” Keith rolls his eyes, and Lance thinks that that's probably the most emotion he's gotten out of him that wasn't _blank stare_ or _shocked stare_. “I mean I literally can't leave. Physically. Something's stopping me.”

“That doesn't even make sense.” Lance's voice is flat, and Keith scowls at the tone.

“What, you think I like being stuck in an abandoned apartment that I can't even leave for who knows how long?” he snaps back. Well, at least this was some sort of conversation. Lance watches as Keith takes a few long strides toward the door, noting that his steps don't make very much noise as he walks, almost as if he was tip-toeing across instead.

He reaches the door and pulls it open, extending out his hand—and then he stops. His palm is raised, flat in their air, as if he was pressing it against something invisible.

Lance stares at him, long and hard. He doesn't look like he was lying—while he _did_ kind of seem like the emo loner type to sit in an abandoned apartment, that probably had to get old at some point, and that's some pretty good acting right there. With the level of irritation he was showing, glaring at Lance as if “ _I told you so_ ,” was right on the tip of his tongue, Lance was pretty sure that if he _could_ just leave he would have already.

Damn. Maybe he _should_ have talked to more ghosts growing up. Was being stuck in a single place normal?

“Well, fine. No need to be a dick about it.”

Oh yeah, if Keith could leave he'd definitely be gone by now. His face says it all.

“Anyway,” Lance carries on, “I've already paid for the first month here and this is the cheapest place around, so I don't plan on moving anytime soon.” he says, and before Keith can interject with anything else, continues, “Guess we're roommates. This would make a pretty hilarious sitcom, actually.”

Lance makes a mental note to add that to his “Genius Ideas” list. It's taped to the mini-fridge, because he doesn't have any magnets.

Keith doesn't look interested in his sitcom idea. “We're not _roommates_. I'll just stay out of your way until I can figure out a way to leave.”

“Oh, no. No. No way am I gonna be having some dude hang around my apartment and I'm supposed to pretend like you're not even there—that's gonna be so _awkward_ , man.” Shaking his head, Lance pinches the bridge of his nose. Keith scowls, dropping his hand from the invisi-wall to cross his arms in front of his chest.

“ _You're_ probably not even supposed to be able to see me. I'm not even supposed to be here, right? I'm a ghost? Or something?” Even Keith doesn't sound sure of it himself. Lance leans onto the back of the couch. Might as well be comfortable, he's been standing long enough.

“Yeah, well, there are like people in the world who can see ghosts. There are also people in the world who pretend they can see ghosts and make reality TV shows about it, but that's beside the point.” Lance makes a dramatic hand wave. “And I, am one of the few blessed with such a gift. Along side many, many other gifts.” he waggles his eyebrows, and Keith groans.

“And yeah, hopefully you're a ghost,” he continues, “Unless you just want to get to know me so bad you're pretending to be one to live with me, in which case, that's pretty gay. Not that that's a problem. But it would be. Gay, I mean. Not a problem.”

Keith stares at him blankly. Lance clears his throat, before moving toward him and extending out his palm. “So. Agree to be roommates, until you figure this out, _even_ _though_ I'm just paying rent for one but _ohhh well_?”

Keith gives his outstretched hand a suspicious look, before sighing like he's resigned to his fate. A little rude, if you asked Lance. But then he reaches out to grasp Lance's hand and _fuck_ , Lance forgot just how weird ghost touches are—like they're just barely there, kind of like a tickle—and then they were shaking on it.

“I don't know why you'd trust me, but whatever. I _could_ be trying to kill you.”

“If someone who's wearing fingerless gloves kills me, I deserve to die.” a pointed glance toward their handshake. Keith snatches back his hand from the grip. “And also, because I'm paying for this place and I don't have any other choice. Just like a true roommates agreement!” Lance grins.  
  
“I'm not sure whether you being the first person to see me is a blessing, or a curse.” Keith replies.

And it's a truly beautiful moment, a bond between man and the supernatural.

Suddenly, Lance gasps. “My car-fresheners! You can help me hang them around the house!”

A very brief lived, beautiful moment indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i haven't had this much fun writing a fic in so long. i apologize for subjecting you to my bad humor, however. if you stuck with this fic all the way to the bottom here, you're a real trooper and i love you<3
> 
> forgive any typos, but feel free to point them out so i can fix them. i wrote this pretty late at night (more like early in the morning) so there might have been a few that escaped my editing eyes.


	2. The Best Friends of Lance Sanchez

Lance quickly figures out that the fastest way to find out who Keith was, at least _personality_ wise, is to ask him what he knows about.

Despite seemingly not having any personal memories, he has vague knowledge of topics—like certain musicians and TV shows, and Lance decides from _this_ information that either he was born in 1960 or he was sent down by aliens with a _very_ outdated data bank.

It starts out like this:

Keith has never heard of Netflix.

“What do you _mean_ , “ _what's Netflix_?”?” Lance asks incredulously, as he boots up his PS4. “Dude, do you know what the internet is?”

“Am I supposed to?” Keith questions him back, and Lance's jaw falls open so comically wide it's painful.

After that it's like a guessing game, where Lance slowly lowers down the things he asks by year.

“Hannah Montana?”  
“The state?”

“No. Shrek ring any bells?”

“Sounds gross.”

“Britney Spears.”

“Nope.”

Lance makes an exasperated noise. “How can you not—Britney is an _icon_!”

“Stop yelling! It's not my fault I don't know any of this!” Keith groans and scoots farther from Lance on the couch. The only reason he was sitting there at all, is probably because Lance didn't have anything else to sit on besides an abandoned cardboard box in the corner.

“This is just really depressing. Okay, fine: Seinfeld?”

Keith shakes his head, and Lance scowls.

“Ugh, this is getting us nowhere. That completely wipes out basically all of the 90s, and I didn't live through anything before that. Um... I don't know, Def Leppard?”

Keith opens his mouth to answer “ _no_ ,” on reflex, before pausing for a moment. “Wait.”

“Yes!?” Lance leans forward, completely ignoring Keith's personal bubble on the too-small couch. “You recognize that name?”

“Um... I think? Can you give me some space?” Keith tries to lean back, like Lance breathing in his Carbon-Dioxide _wasn't_ preferable. Whatever. Lance moves back to his side of the couch and puts his hands behind his head.

Too smooth.

“It sounds vaguely familiar, at least. Is he in a rock band?”

“My _dude_.” Lance leans forward again, less than before but still close enough to make Keith frown. Why was the only piece of furniture he had a _love-seat_? “Def Leppard _is_ a rock band. Okay, this is perfect, you remember the eighties--”

“Were they a big deal or something?”

“Oh my sweet, _sweet_ heavenly lord how could you have lived through the eighties and asked a question like that please God give me the courage to go easy on this poor soul—Come on, you have to know... _Love Biiiites, Love Bleeeeeds.._.”

Keith gives him a clueless stare. Lance stares back in disbelief.

“ _Love's bringing me to my knees!_ Come _on_ , Keith, how can you recognize the name but not their _number one hit_!?”

“Stop freaking out!!”

“ _You_ stop freaking out! Augh!” Lance shoves his hands into his hair, slumping over. He never thought he'd be having a near-mental breakdown over Def Leppard.

Finally, he takes a shaky breath and stands up. “Okay, I'm taking a break. Whatever. At least we have a general time...ish. Probably.”

“You're the one who started drilling me on this stuff out of nowhere, so don't act like the victim here.” Keith scowls, turning back toward the TV. Lance rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, trying to help _you_ out. You know what? I need...” he pauses for a moment, fishing for the perfect distraction. “... Hunk. I need Pidge and Hunk! That's perfect! They can come over!”

Keith glances toward him, peering from over the couch. “Pidge and Hunk? You have friends?”

Oh, _haha_. Lance honestly can't tell if that's sarcasm in his voice or not—but he's going to _pretend_ it is, at least. “ _Excuse_ you, Pidge and Hunk are my closest and best friends.” and maybe his only friends, but whatever. Keith doesn't have to know that. “They even helped me move in here.”

“Oh, them.” Keith responds. “I thought they were just people you hired to help out. They didn't seem to like you all that much.”

“You take that back.” Lance glares at him. Keith scoffs.

“What? No.”

“... Well, whatever! It's not like I'm so insecure that I need your validation anyway! You're still practically a stranger! And also, kind of a dick!” he snatches his phone from where it was seated on the couch, and stomps around angrily. Keith's eyes follow him, half-amused, but Lance ignores him and sends a simple text to the two:

“ _be over in like 10 mins, got something HUGE to show u both_ ”,

and locks his phone. He doesn't need to check it to know that they'll come; also, he doesn't need to check it to know that he left himself wide open for a zinger small-penis joke from Pidge. That's fine. This is fine.

He turns back to Keith.

“Okay, so I know I just called you a dick but I need a favor. It'll benefit us both.”

Keith's eyebrows nearly shoot up into his hairline. “A _favor_?”

“Yeah. So basically, I've never told Pidge and Hunk about the whole, you know, seeing ghosts thing—or well I tried to once but it didn't work out. Anyway, so since you're here, and you can be _proof_ and I won't just sound crazy--”

“I thought talking to ghosts was one of your many ' _incredible talents_ ',” Keith punctuates the phrase with air-quotes. “You really don't brag about it?”

“ _Some_ talents, are better shown than told.” he adds a wink to the end of the statement, and then pauses. “Oh. I just made that weird, didn't I?”

Keith squints at him. “Yeah, that was weird.”

“Yeah,” Lance agrees. “It was a little weird. But so _anyway_.... _Please_?”

“Ugh, fine.”

Lance celebrates internally.

 

* * *

 

Thirty minutes later, and not ten because Pidge and Hunk are not magical beings who can make it to another part of the city in a few minutes, Lance is stretching out his arms to welcome them into his apartment.

“And enjoy the magic of being in a place that's not school-owned,” he says, closing the door behind them. “No nosy unprompted RA visits. Just me, myself, and I.”

Well, and Keith. But that reveal could wait.

“Wow.” Pidge's eyes scan the living area critically. “ _Nice_ TV stand.”

“Why thank you. I built it myself.”

They open their mouth to respond—probably in some very witty, yet still offensive manner—but Hunk interrupts before there's a never-ending fountain of sarcasm bursting between the two. “So, man, what was so urgent that you had to show us _immediately_?”

Right to the point. He'd expect no less. Lance's eyes flick toward the corner where Keith is standing, arms folded and a slight frown on his face, before he turns back to beam at Hunk. He can't give it away, not yet. “ _Well_ , my friend, I am _so_ glad you asked.” he was really hamming it up. Big reveals like this took build up, suspense.

Hunk arches an eyebrow. “I don't like that look.”

“Um, all my looks are handsome and attractive and _I_ don't like that tone of voice. Anyway, please be seated.” he motions the two toward the couch, flashing Keith a thumbs-up behind his back when they turn away. Except Pidge, who sees anyway and raises an eyebrow. Good thing Lance is _super_ smooth and plays it off like he was scratching his spine. Absolutely _impeccable_ acting.

“So I, have a very _very_ important confession to make. It may be shocking.” Lance locks eyes with Keith, jerking his head ever-so-slightly to motion for him to come over. Pidge and Hunk share a look.

“Lance...” Hunk starts, but Lance shushes him sharply.

“Just _wait_ , okay! No comments!” he snaps, turning his back to them to rummage through a box for a moment. He pulls out a notebook and a pen, and scoots the box over in front of the couch before slamming down the pen and paper onto it like they should _already_ be impressed.

No coffee table? No problem. Cardboard box furniture was the future and Lance was going to cash in on it, becoming a millionaire someday. Made from the tears of college students everywhere: Cardboard Commodes™ .

He straightens himself up and eyes Keith, who has moved toward them, albeit reluctantly. Lance sucks in a breath. The atmosphere has finally been set to perfection.

“I... Can see ghosts.”

The reaction he gets is underwhelming, to say the least.

Neither of them move, or say anything, for a few seconds. Finally, Pidge opens their mouth—then closes it again—then opens it once more. “... Have we had this conversation before?”

“No!” Lance spits. “Well, I mean yes, but you didn't take me seriously!”

“ _Are_ you being serious?”

“Yes! And look, this time, I can even prove it.” he moves aside, gesturing toward the notebook in front of them. “Keith, please.”

So they wait.

Nothing happens.

Lance gives a panicked look toward Keith, who's still just standing there. Is he... Is that a smirk on his face? Noticing his gaze, Keith speaks for the first time since Hunk and Pidge arrived.

“They look pretty concerned for you right now, so I guess you win that one; they _do_ care about you.”

Lance sputters. Pidge and Hunk send each other _another_ look, and honestly, Lance is just really getting tired of their shit now. He grits his teeth and grumbles, “Come on, Keith, we talked about this...”

Keith really, _really_ looks like he's trying to fight back a grin. Hunk and Pidge are just getting more and more worried by the second, their faces gone from “mildly confused” to “oh no, I don't want to have to admit my best friend,”.

“ _Keith_ ,” Lance whines, and that does it. Whether it was pity for the two sitting on the couch, or his own desperate voice, Lance will never know. What he does know is that Keith finally goes to pick up the pen, and carefully writes down a single word:

“ _ **Hi**_ _._ ”

Honestly, the look on Pidge and Hunk's faces hasn't changed that much. Lance is just glad it's directed toward the pen floating in the air now, and not himself. Proudly, he crosses his arms in front of his chest.

“Believe me _now_?”

Neither of them answer for a second, which Lance takes as a good sign. Of course, it was a shocking revelation. He's about to give out some soothing words; “ _yes, yes, it's very surprising, I understand if you need to take a few minutes to really digest this information,_ ” but Hunk speaks up first.

“... Dude, what kind of effect is that? Did you rig this apartment up or something?” Hunk switches from staring at the words on the paper to looking around, like he's expecting to find invisible wires he didn't notice before. Pidge leans forward, squinting.

“...Hmm.”

Well, while not quite the reaction he was looking for, Lance will take this over them trying to drag him to a psychiatrist any day. “That, my friends, is Keith.”

Hunk scoots forward on the couch and waves his hand over the pen—instinctively, Keith moves to the side and drops the pen. Lance shoots him an annoyed look.

“Whoa! What the heck?” Hunk's eyebrows furrow as he watches the pen roll across the ground, and then come to a stop at Keith's feet. “Did I break the wire?”

“Wh—No! There is no wire!” Lance snaps, moving his glare from Keith to Hunk. “You startled him and he dropped it!”

Pidge snorts.

“He _spooked_ the _ghost_?”

“I wasn't _spooked_.” Keith says, out loud. Lance gives him a _Look_ and points down to the pad of paper. He stares at Lance for a few seconds, scowling, before finally relenting with a sigh.

Keith bends down and picks the pen back up, moving it toward the paper once more. And again, the duo on the couch's eyes widen as the words appear.

“ _ **You would have moved out of the way if someone suddenly reached toward you, too.**_ ”

Pidge's jaw drops.

“No... Way. Lance. Is this for real?”

He wants to roll his eyes, but chooses instead to puff his chest out proudly. “Umm, _duh_. You _really_ think I put in all the effort to prank you guys this elaborately?”

“No.” they reply, in unison. Pidge's eyes flick back down to the paper, then back up to space where Keith is standing. They squint.

“So he's... Right _there_?” they raise a finger in the general direction, pointing right toward his chest. He seems mildly impressed. Lance opens his mouth to respond, but Keith is one step ahead of him already--hand on the paper, scribbling down his answer.

Huh. It's almost like...

He's enjoying this?

Lance ponders that for a moment as Keith writes. How long had he been around this house by himself? He does seem more like loner type, but... Well,  _everybody_ needs other human contact after awhile. It's probably... Pretty lonely, being a ghost. He almost feels bad that he never considered it before.

“ _ **Yeah**_ **.** ” Keith finally finishes writing. The handwriting is worst than his initial hello, written up at the top of the paper still, but Keith's also writing a lot faster than he was. He pauses for a moment, and then tacks on, “ _ **Right next to Lance. Facing you two**_.”

Hunk looks vaguely faint, like he's finally starting to believe and almost wishes he _didn't_. Pidge taps their fingers on their knees.

“How tall are you?”

“ _Why”_ Lance wants to ask, but loses the train of thought as Keith turns toward him for a moment, eyes studying. Lance blinks as Keith moves closer, so close their faces are only a few inches apart.

“Uh—Geez, dude! _Now_ who's in who's personal space!” he splutters, taking a step backward. Keith scowls, rolls his eyes, and sighs. Moving back toward the paper to start writing again, he snaps,

"I was trying to figure out how tall I am compared to you. Calm down."

But it's too late. Pidge's eyebrows are already almost all the way up into their hairline.

“ _Personal space_?”

“Wha—Oh, shut it, he was like two inches from me! That's definitely a personal space violation.” Pidge eyes glint like they're going to respond with something Lance probably doesn't want to hear, but stops when Keith taps the paper with the pen to get their attention back.

“ _ **Maybe two inches shorter than Lance**_ **.** ”

Pidge laughs. “Must suck to have to only be able to talk to Lance! I mean, you know, without writing it down.”

“Hey!”

“ _ **It does**_ _._ ”

“ _Hey_!”

There's a beat of silence in the room as Pidge stares at Lance, curiosity bubbling up in their eyes. Oh, _no._  

“Um,” Hunk clears his throat, still a shade of white that's way too far from his natural skin color to be healthy. “So this is... For real? For real, real.”

“The _realest_ , my friend. Iggy Azalea style.”

“Wait, how long has this been going on?” Pidge cuts in, before Lance decides to start rapping. Lance frowns.

“I dunno. Like, my entire life?”

They give him an incredulous look. “And you're telling me that you haven't tried to exploit this? Not even to hit on any ghost girls--”

“ _Hey_.” Lance puts on his best _I'm-so-offended_ face. “I'm not that desperate! You know what that looks like in public? It's not like the ghosts can sense that I can see them so I just... Ignore them.”

“Is that why you space out so much, man?” Hunk questions. Lance nods, pointedly ignoring Pidge's dramatic sigh. They pull their glasses off to wipe them down with their shirt, before speaking again.

“You can _see_ ghosts and you just ignore them. You know what other people would do for that kind of ability?” Lance is about to open his mouth to retort, but when they place the glasses back on their face brightens up. “So, Keith! What do you look like?”

Keith, looking slightly shocked to be suddenly brought back into the conversation, blinks blankly. He spins the pen in his fingers and Pidge watches, fascinated, as the pen seemingly moves by itself.

“That's a weird question to ask someone.” Hunk points out. Pidge only shrugs in response.

“Well, you can _see_ most people. I'm just curious.”

Seeing Keith struggle to find a way to describe himself, Lance decides to helpfully give his own description. “He's got a mullet...” he waves his hands around his shoulders, demonstrating the length. “Business in the front, party in the back, am I right? And a red jacket, and fingerless gloves... Imagine like, the lamest biker get-up you've ever seen-- Mrrf!”

Suddenly, Lance's mouth is covered with the _very_ fingerless-gloved hands he was just insulting. He breaks free to see Keith glowering at him.

“ _What_? I was just describing what I was seeing.”

“Well maybe you need to find better words to describe people with.”

“Well, maybe _you_ need a hair cut!”

“And who's gonna cut my hair? _You_?”

Just as Lance is about to answer, Pidge clears their throat, loudly. “Wow.”

Keith and Lance both turn their heads to look at them. They shrug. “I just can't believe Keith is still hanging around you. Do you two do nothing but bicker? Only _Lance_ could have an argument over _hair_.”

The pen is on the paper before Lance can even respond. “ _ **I can't leave the apartment.**_ ”

Pidge's eyes widen in realization, like that makes _all_ the sense in the world, and somehow Lance is a little offended that he seems so insufferable a stranger wouldn't want to hang out with him for more than a few minutes. “Oh, you're stuck in _this_ place? _Ouch_. So... Do you have unfinished business here or something? Or is that just like a movie-ghost thing?”

Keith shrugs, then remembers they can't see him and responds on the paper. “ _ **I don't know. I can't remember anything**_.”

“Ghost amnesia!” Hunk adds helpfully. Pidge scratches their chin.

“I wonder if we can help somehow... Hm." they tongue the inside of their cheek, and Lance can practically see the gears turning inside their head. "Maybe if we knew something about your life before? Can you only remember your first name? Not even when you died?”

“ _ **Yeah**_.”

“Wait,” Lance starts, “I was talking to him earlier and I think we figured out an approximate death date... Maybe the 80s?”

Pidge hums thoughtfully.

“Maybe I can search around online and see if I can anything about a Keith that died in the 80s. Still pretty vague but... I can start around the area, at least.” they pause. “You... Probably have living relatives, you know.”

“ _ **Oh**_.”

They shrug. “Just a thought. I don't know anything for sure.”

Hunk decides to chip in, “We can try searching through obituaries. I mean, there are probably a lot of people who died throughout the entire 80's named Keith but...”

“Worth a shot?”

He nods. “Man, I can't believe I'm helping a ghost find his identity.”

Pidge grins. “Looks like it's starting out to be a way more exciting school year than the last. Speaking of which--” their eyes dart to the watch on their wrist. “I still have a form to fill out for Professor Shiro for tomorrow, _sooo_ I have to get going.”

Hunk groans. “Oh, right, that. I love his classes, but also, I hate them. Homework to do before we even have class?”

Pidge hums in agreement, but Lance scowls. “Hey, first off, watch what you say about my favorite professor. He's like my _hero_. Secondly, we didn't even hardly hang out!”

“Your _former_ professor,” Pidge corrects. “Also, don't you have work in like thirty minutes?”

“Thirty...” Lance gropes around for his phone, paling when he finds it and hits the unlock button. “Oh, _shit_.”

Hunk chuckles as he and Pidge stand up. “Nice. You might want to add a clock to your décor, before you're actually late one of these days.”

“Um, that's what phones are for.”

“You're only saying that because you still don't know how to read an analog clock.” Pidge scoffs, turning toward the paper. “Also hey, nice to meet you Keith. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for information.”

“ _ **Thanks**_.” Keith gives a small smile that only Lance sees.

They grin. “Aw, no prob--”

“Okay, cute moment, but out, out! I have like twenty-five minutes to get ready and go and you guys said you were busy anyway!” Lance interrupts, holding the door open for them. Pidge rolls their eyes.

“You're such a great host.”

“I love you both too _okaynowgoodbye_.”

He shuts the door firmly after they leave, and scrambles toward the bathroom. Keith's eyes follow after him.

“Where do you work?” he asks him, from outside the bathroom. Lance's muffled reply comes from the other side of the door.

“Uh—a record store like ten minutes away from here, which is mostly why I moved here in the first place. Well, that and the rent was cheap. We mostly sell like, old records. Vintage stuff.” Lance pokes his head out the bathroom door. “ _Why_? Gonna miss me?”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Just counting down the minutes until you leave.”

The bathroom door shuts again, and Keith settles down onto the couch. Lance comes out a few minutes later, looking exactly how he was.

“Ah, nice and fresh now.”

“You look the same.”

Lance shrugs. “Well, that's because I'm _always_ fresh. Like Subway, except they leave the lettuce out too long and it always tastes a little soggy to me.”

Keith stares at him blankly. “What?”

“Don't worry about it. Okay, I'll be back later, stay out of trouble and don't answer the door to strangers.”

Keith gives him a flat look.

“Hehe, just kidding.” he flashes him a thumbs-up. “But if anyone tries to break in, you can just bang around pots and stuff and scare them away. Can you imagine? I'd be scared shitless if the place I broke into was haunted.”

Keith looks considerably less amused by this than Lance is. “Thanks. Happy to be your apartment guard.”

He gives Keith one last smug smirk, before shutting the door and locking it behind him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's my 21st birthday tomorrow! (well, when this was posted, on september 5th.) this is my gift to you guys please treasure it
> 
> i managed to bang out this chapter between moving back into my college apartment and buying food and supplies for class and man, i am so hyped to be writing this fic that i think it shows!! it's even longer than the last one. i'd like to keep updating this every few days, but class is starting soon and i'm taking 17 credit hours so we'll just have to see.
> 
> thanks for reading!!


	3. The Hoodie of Lance Sanchez

“Hey, Allura, do you believe in ghosts?”

It's a random question, even for the stuff he sometimes comes off with, Lance knows. He watches as Allura pauses, price sticker stuck to her fingers that hover over an album cover.

She goes from legitimate thinking face—to suspicion, all within the space of a few seconds.

“Is this going to transform into some sort of pick-up line?”

And... Okay, while he can't _blame_ her for coming to that conclusion, he's realized long ago that his chances with his boss were at less than zero percent by now. After she got engaged to Shiro, he pretty much stopped flirting completely. It's one thing to have a crush on someone who's taken, but it's an entirely _different_ thing to have a crush on someone who's taken by one of your favorite college professors.

Plus, she always just ignored him anyway. Or would pat his head like he was cute in a puppy way. Even _worst_.

“Allura, you wound me. Can't a guy ask a simple question?”

She sends Lance a look that clearly says “ _No_ ” or maybe “Most _can, but not you,_ ”, he can't really tell. Either way, after a few more seconds she relents and continues putting stickers onto the merchandise.

“Well, I suppose I do. There are stranger things in this world.”

He's really not convinced there are too many stranger things than having a ghost for a roommate, but hey, what did he know. Maybe _she_ saw faeries or something. “So, what would you do if you ever _saw_ a ghost?”

“That depends.” she's so precise, as she puts the stickers on the exact same place over and over again, that Lance almost wants to measure it to see if they're even a centimeter off on any of them. “Is it a scary, haunt-you-until-you-die kind of ghost or a normal ghost?”

He's not sure exactly _what_ a normal ghost is—but before he can ask for clarification, she continues,

“Actually, I take that back. I'm sure it doesn't really matter. I would treat them like all things deserve to be treated: with respect.”

“Um, even if it was trying to kill you? Like if it was a bad ghost?”

Allura stares at him blankly. “I don't think any dead person would come back just to kill another. Unless maybe they really deserved it.”

Clearly, she has never seen _The Walking Dead_. But whatever, that was an entirely different supernatural phenomenon. He must have looked skeptical, because she clarifies:

“We're speaking about ghosts as in, the kind that were human once, right? And maybe they even still think they're human. So I'd treat them like a human being, because that's what they are.”

Allura really surprises him sometimes—because she's full of thoughtful and very humane, kind thoughts, but also works him like a slave driver. He loves her but he _hates_ closing with her, because if every detail isn't done right... It's a depressing, miserable night indeed.

And just as if reading his mind, she slaps the albums that she was just sticking prices on before in front of him. What—how could she be done already!? He had completely paused his organizing to have this conversation!

“I'm clocking out early, so Coran is coming in to close with you. Make sure you alphabetize all of these and stock them before you leave, and this time, please don't leave all the lights on in the store.”

He sighs. “Okay, Allura.”

“Thank you, Lance. You know I always appreciate the hard work you do!” she gives him a sweet smile, before heading to the backroom.

Sometimes, he actually doesn't envy Shiro at all.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and as long as Allura isn't around to _see_ him looking his phone when he had a _literal_ pile of work to be doing in front of him, Lance sees no harm in checking it.

 

 

> [ **6:48PM** ]: hey are you busy tomorrow
> 
> [ **6:49PM** ]: lol just kidding you're never busy. Me and Hunk have an idea we want to try with Keith
> 
> [ **6:49PM** ]: we'll be over at 3?

 

Well. Pretty presumptuous of them to assume he had nothing going on. … But they weren't wrong.

Just as he begins to type back a reply, something along the lines of “ _only if you smuggle out those gummy bears from the caf and bring them_ ,” he hears a loud cough behind him.

Oops.

 

* * *

 

Lance gets home forty minutes later than expected—apparently Coran had been given instructions that the entire store needed to be mopped, oh and _also_ , the bathroom needed to be scrubbed down. Despite the fact that Lance was pretty sure that was a punishment meant specifically for him, Coran helped out. Thank god for that strange little man or else Lance would probably _still_ be there.

He isn't surprised to see Keith laying on the couch when he gets home. Keith has practically made the piece of furniture his bed—despite the fact that Lance was pretty sure he didn't sleep. But something's a little off when he walks into the door, even as Keith leans up when he walks in.

Keith doesn't normally ever look all that happy, per say... Lance would probably call it a bad case of r _esting bitch face_ , but there's an unusual tightness to the downward tilt of his lips that sets off alarm flags.

And honestly, Lance isn't sure if he's more worried about what's wrong with Keith or what's wrong with _him_. To have already memorized such a minute detail about his ( _not_ ) roommate, close enough to immediately know something's wrong... Lance isn't dense or anything, but he's not usually _that_ particularly observant.

He's so caught up in his own thoughts that he still hasn't really entered the apartment, hand still on the doorknob. Keith's frown deepens into a scowl as Lance hovers there, staring at him.

“... _What_? Seen a ghost or something?”

It takes Lance a full ten more seconds to realize that oh, _oh_ , that was a joke and _oh_ , Keith's got _jokes_. Except he still isn't sure if it _was_ a joke, or maybe just a badly thought-out comment, because there's not even a trace of a smile or smirk anywhere on Keith's face. Actually, maybe Lance is more tired than he thought and just hallucinated the whole thing.

“Uh, long day.” Lance finally manages, closing the door behind him and kicking off his shoes. Keith sits up and moves over to make room for him, but doesn't say anything more. As a matter of fact, he's not even looking over at him—just keeping his eyes forward, fixed on the TV that _wasn't even on_.

Lance bites the insides of his cheek. Oh great, he was one of _those_ people. This was going to be like pulling teeth.

He flops down on the couch, next to Keith—not that there was anywhere else to sit, considering how small it was—and makes a huge gesture of picking up the remote, only to turn to Keith and ask, “SO! How was _your_ evening?”

“Fine.”

And, okay, maybe on any other night Lance might have had the patience to work this out, slowly. Maybe in another universe, Lance might have let Keith come around to it himself, or just left it alone. But tonight, Lance was tired and had no patience and _damn it_ , he was gonna find out what the hell was wrong.

“Dude. Come on,” he gives Keith a light shove—playfully, but the withering look Keith gives him makes him question Allura's thoughtful _ghosts wouldn't kill_ philosophy. Lance presses on, despite this. “If we're going to live together, you can't just go all emo mode out of nowhere. What's _wrong_?”

Keith looks like he's struggling. The crease in his forehead deepens from his heavy scowling, and Lance wonders to himself if what his mom always said about your face getting stuck like that was true.

Finally, Keith lets out a sigh.

“It's stupid. It's _really_ stupid.”

“Can't be any more stupid than your mullet-hair.”

Belatedly, Lance realizes that perhaps this is not the best thing to say to someone who's acting emotionally constipated. Keith glares at him.

“Uh, just kidding! Actually your hair looks pretty good on you. Like, only you could pull that off. In this era.”

His eyebrows raise, but at least Keith isn't staring death rays anymore. He sighs and leans back into the couch, avoiding eye contact.

“You were just later than your schedule said you'd be, and it was a little freaky, alright? You're the only one who can see me, so...”

Okay, well now Lance feels kind of like a dick. And also, Keith isn't looking at him again, so he's not sure if this is actually any better. He probably should have thought about that—he was almost an hour late, counting the time it took to commute back, and it wasn't like Keith had any way to contact him...

Wait. That was a _perfect_ idea.

“You need a cell phone!”

Keith glances at him. “A what?”

“A cell phone. One of these.” he holds up his own, wiggling it. “We can get you an older model—nothing too fancy, something cheap. And that way you have a way to contact me! And Pidge, and Hunk. I am a _genius_.”

“I don't know how to use one of those.” he points out. Lance shrugs.

“It's easy enough to learn. You might be _dead_ , but you're not some eighty-year-old lady.” he kicks his feet up on the cardboard-table in front of the couch, and closes his eyes. “I can go buy one tomorrow, before Pidge and Hunk come over.”

“They're coming back?”

“Mhmm. Pidge say they had an idea, so maybe we'll have like, some ginormous breakthrough or something.” Lance shifts around slightly. He had never really slept out here before, but _damn_ , it was surprisingly comfy, even just like this. “Whatever it is, with Pidge and Hunk behind it it's sure to be good. Or maybe blow up, but that only happened once.”

Keith says something back—maybe in a slightly alarmed voice? But Lance is already halfway gone to dreamland.

 

* * *

 

When Lance wakes up, the first thing he realizes is that _holy shit_ his neck hurts. He rolls it around, opening his eyes--

Oh, that's why. He was still on the couch.

He squints, looking for his phone. Light wasn't filtering in through the window yet, so it was hard to see, but he manages to find it by groping around enough. 4:45AM. The light that comes from the screen nearly blinds him when he unlocks it.

His back pops uncomfortably as he stands up. What had seemed like a perfectly good sleeping place a few hours ago probably just gave him premature back problems. _Hooray_.

Lance wanders into the kitchen to get a glass of water before returning to his bed, and almost pees his pants when he sees Keith.

 _Several_ Spanish expletives fly through his mind, but what he settles on is a very high-pitched scream. Keith looks up, alarmed, and Lance realizes he's reading one of those people magazines that used to get sent to Lance all the time. Whoever lived at his dorm room before him never bothered to change their address with the post office, he guessed.

He puts one hand over his chest and leans on the wall, breathing out as his heart settles back down. Keith's looking fairly shocked, too.

“Dude, I—You can't just... You're a _ghost_ , you can't sit on boxes in people's kitchens in the middle of the night and read magazines!”

“Wh—Well excuse me for not wanting to disturb you!”

Lance sucks in a shaky breath, pulling his hand away from the wall. “Is this what you do _every_ night?” he takes a few steps closer, trying to get a better look at exactly what article Keith was reading.

Keith frowns for a moment as Lance studies him. Flipping the magazine shut, he looks away. “... I was just getting caught up on stuff. Magazines seemed like a good way to do it. And for _your_ information, I usually read in the living room, but _someone_ was snoring.”

“I do not snore.” Lance crosses his arms over his chest. “But point taken. I will get my water, and head back to my room so you can have the couch.”

Keith shrugs. “I didn't really care one way or the other.”

As he fills a glass up from the tap, Lance stretches, earning some more good cracks from his spine. He shudders. “Yeah, well, my back does. Hey, do you really not sleep at all?”

“No.” Keith answers. “I never feel tired. Or hungry. Or thirsty, actually.”

“That sounds both terrible and terribly convenient, all at once.” Lance pauses for a moment, taking a drink of the freshly-poured water. “ _Ah_ , hits the spot. Well... Anyway. If you ever need anything, you can always wake me up. I can fall back asleep faster than anyone I know.”

“I noticed.” Keith replies dryly, but Lance thinks there's a bit of a smile underneath. “... Thanks, though.”

“No problem, man. See you in the morning.”

 

* * *

 

Lance does not see Keith in the morning. Lance doesn't see _anything_ in the morning, or even the early afternoon, until he's woken up by _something_ tossed at his beautiful, sleeping face.

“Whhaat the _fuck_?” he slurs, as he sits up and sees Pidge and Hunk standing in his doorway. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes and groans. “Why are you here?”

“Because it's 3:30.” Pidge supplies. Lance blinks.

“... Uh, Keith let us in.” Hunk explains, before Lance can even get the question out. As a matter of fact, he's having a hard time doing anything other than trying to clear out his foggy, sleepy brain. “I mean, I'm assuming... Unless your door just randomly opens.”

“Oh.” Lance says, and then sits up straighter. “Oh! Crap, is it really... It's past three?”

“Yep.” they answer together. Lance groans.

“Shit, I'm sorry, I overslept... What did you throw at me earlier?”

“A whiteboard.” Pidge's grin is too-telling. “Hunk's idea to bring it, mine to throw it.”

Scratching the back of his head, Hunk looks bashful. “I thought maybe it would be easier to communicate with than a piece of paper, since he can just write on it and then erase it.”

Lance gives him a thumbs-up. “Hunk, you're such a genius.” and then, notices that Keith isn't standing behind them. “Hey, where's Keith?”

He gets two blank stares.

“Oh, right.” Lance chuckles lamely. “Well, he's probably in the living room... Somewhere. Give me like five minutes to get ready and I'll be out there.”

 _Ten_ minutes later, Lance was finally ready. True to exactly where Lance thought he'd be, Keith is sitting in the living room—with a cell phone. Lance's eyes almost bug out of his head.

“Where'd you get that?”

Keith looks up from where Pidge's finger is pointed to on the screen, and Pidge follows suit, grin on their face.

“It's my old pay-to-go phone from middle school. I tweaked it a little to be easier to use, so now Keith can talk to any of us whenever he wants.” Keith sort of shrugs, like, “ _well, they said it all_ ” before turning back to Pidge's explanation. Lance turns to Hunk, exasperated.

“But, _I_ was gonna do that!”

Hunk frowns. “... You were gonna modify an old phone?”

“Well, no. But I was gonna go out and buy Keith an old-school Tracfone, or something like that! Pidge beat me to the punch!”

They just shrug at the mention of their name. “You snooze you lose. Besides, I took out a bunch of unnecessary stuff so Keith doesn't have to worry about it. It's streamlined.”

“Fancy.” Lance grumbles, and Pidge raises an eyebrow. They turn away, to finish explaining texting to Keith.

“... And so that way, you can talk to us even when we're not here. When we are here though, you can just use this whiteboard, since I'm sure writing is still faster for you than hunting around for the keys on this phone keyboard.” Pidge pauses for a moment. “Oh, and we did have... One more idea.”

“... What is it?”

There's a hesitation in Pidge's voice that Lance _really_ doesn't like. They tap their chin thoughtfully.

“Well... At first, I thought maybe we could put a wristband on Keith or something, so we have a general idea of where he is and don't... Sit on him, or something.” they begin, “But I still think that might be too subtle and easy to miss. As a matter of fact, any accessory suffers from that problem. Like a necklace or a watch or something. Maybe a little clunkier, but we need something _bigger_.”

“... So?”

So I had another idea.”

“... Are their glasses glinting?” Keith asks. Lance furrows his eyebrows, moving his gaze back to Pidge.

“... Go on.”

“Remember that oversized hoodie you bought because you thought it would make you look cool and tough, but instead you just looked stupid?”

“Um, _ouch_. I don't look stupid in _anything_. But where are you going with...” Lance trails off, realizing _exactly_ where they were going with this. “Pidge, no.”

“Hear me out! It's big enough that Keith can pull it over whatever he's wearing now--”

“I don't even know where it is, it's probably stuffed in a box--”

“No it isn't, you always organize your clothes, and also it's _just for today_! We can go buy something else later.”

Pidge got the final word in, and Lance just knew that was that. In a battle of wills, Lance is more stubborn, but Pidge is far more logical and _damn_ it there was just no arguing with them. Helplessly, he looks to Hunk for backup. Hunk simply shrugs.

“Sorry, man. I think Pidge is right.”

“Traitor.” Lance hisses. His eyes catch Keith's, and he gets an idea. “Hey, wait, we didn't even ask Keith about--”

“Yeah they did.” “Yeah I did.”

How could they speak in unison when they can't even hear each other? That kind of special connection should have been reserved for the three of them only. Pidge grins.

“Why is it such a big deal anyway, huh Lance?”

He frowns. “Because those are my clothes! _My_ clothes.” he puts extra emphasis on it the second time, making Pidge roll their eyes.

“Yeah, your clothes that you don't even wear. I haven't seen that hoodie since you bought it, because you know it looks stupid on you.”

“Nothing looks stupid on me!” he huffs.

There are suddenly three pairs of eyes on him, and dead silence in the living room. There was no way he was going to be able to worm his way out of this one. Defeated, he lets out the biggest, most dramatic sigh he can muster up before he beings the shuffle off to his room.

“Fine. But we're getting him his own as soon as we can.”

It takes him literally less than two minutes to find the hoodie. It's at the very bottom of his stack of winter clothes, folded neatly into a square. He pulls it out and carries it out with a frown on his face, tossing it towards Keith when he gets back into the living room.

“Told you you knew where it was.” Pidge quips. He ignores them in favor watching Keith unfold the hoodie, bringing it up to his face and taking in a deep breath.

Lance's eyes nearly bug out of his head. What the hell did he just see?

“Why are you sniffing my hoodie!?” he demands, pointing accusingly. Keith's face goes about as red as Lance thinks is humanly possible. So he _was_ sniffing it! That was a 100% guilty reaction, right there.

“Wha—I wasn't sniffing your—I was just making sure that it didn't stink!” he shouts back, nearly dropping the hoodie. Lance scoffs, offendedly.

“My clothes don't stink! It was folded and freshly laundered--”

“I didn't know how long it had sat for! And coming from the guy who's idea of _air freshener_ are those little trees you stick in cars--"

"It _works_ , doesn't it?"

"--I was just making sure!” Keith insists, voice cracking. Lance would probably make fun of him, if he wasn't so... Outraged right now.

Yeah, that was the right word. Outraged.

“Can you two _stop_?” Pidge cuts in, looking annoyed—but Lance knows better than that, and can see right through their act to the smugness underneath. Oh, what a little four-eyed _gremlin_.

Keith lets out a puff of air, cheeks still red as he pulls the clothing over his head. And...

Well.

If the hoodie was big on Lance, it was even bigger on Keith. It stopped just a bit before his knees, and was baggy around his arms. The silvery-blue color... Looked better than Lance had thought it would on Keith. Actually it might have looked better on Keith than on him, which was kind of hard for Lance to swallow, although for some reason Lance couldn't really swallow right now anyway.

Keith looked really, _really_ good in Lance's over-sized hoodie. And he was glad that Keith was avoiding eye contact with him, because Lance was pretty sure that the head on his face was very visible.

“Hey! Nice, it worked!”

Hunk's voice snaps Lance out of his thoughts, and he was happy to see that neither Pidge nor Hunk were looking at him. Tentatively, Keith raises an arm and waves at them.

They wave back, and the smile on Keith's face probably could have cured like every terminal illness, ever.

Suddenly, Lance feels really weird. “Ha, _uh_ , _be right back_.” he says, smooth as butter _just like he always is_ , before slipping into the bathroom and shutting the door behind him. He takes in a deep breath, counting down as he lets it out.

 _Five, four, three, two, one_...

He frowns as he looks at himself in the mirror. What the hell was _that_?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> number of times i've typed "pidgey" instead of "pidge" count: 6
> 
> this is such a self indulgent chapter. i was like "..... i want keith to wear lance's clothes" and so, he did. would recommend everyone to write fanfiction so they can write out their own fantasies like this, it is incredibly satisfying.
> 
> as always, thanks for reading! and thank you guys for all the birthday wishes!


	4. The Acronyms of Lance Sanchez

 

Okay.

_Okay_.

Lance needed to get out of this bathroom, before the three of them started to think he had explosive diarrhea, and went out to buy actual air freshener. He looks back up at himself in the mirror, grimacing at how flushed his face _still_ was.

With a sigh, he splashes some cool water onto his face. He had to go back out there. He could deal with... Whatever, whatever _this_ was, later.

Deep breaths, in, out. No thoughts of mullets. Take any weird emotions, and shove them in the bathroom closet, labeled with a sticky note: _to examine later_.

Or never.

He finally exits the bathroom, and it's less traumatizing than he thinks it might be—Now that he's expecting Keith to be out there, wearing his hoodie, he's sure it'll be easier to handle—or it probably _would_ be, if Keith was still wearing it. Instead, he's standing there, hoodie balled up in his hands.

“ _Rude_.” Lance says, before catching the clothing article as it flies at his face. Keith sends him a dirty look—oh, looks like the blush hadn't completely gone off his face either. Somehow, Lance feels a bit smug about that.

Pidge rolls their eyes from where they're perched on the floor, and Lance realizes that there's a circle of movies laid out around them.

“Well, it's whatever if Keith doesn't want to wear it. It probably does smell weird.” they pause at Lance's indignant noise. “At least we're only going to watch movies today, so we should all be in the same spot anyway.”

“We _are_?” Lance asks, eyebrow raised and slightly impressed that Pidge had just... _Taken_ over his TV like that. Hunk hums in agreement.

“I picked them out! Started in 1985, since we know... Or figure, at least? That Keith died sometime around then.” he gives a bright smile, patting the seat next to him. Lance frowns.

“... We're all going to sit on this couch?”

Hunk shrugs. “Sure?”

Oh, okay.

Pidge holds up a movie before Lance can protest—effectively interrupting him before he even started whining, which was mildly impressive. _Ferris Buller's Day Out_.

“Have any memories of watching this?” they ask, hold it out. Keith takes it and frowns, studying it for a brief moment before handing it back.

“ _ **Don't think so**_.” he writes, after picking up the whiteboard from it's resting place on the back of the couch. Pidge gives a thumbs-up.

“Awesome, then we either have a starting point to jog some memories, or to make new ones.”

Pidge inserts the movie—when they _could_ have just used Netflix, but whatever—and hops up on the other side of Hunk. Together, they look up expectantly at Lance, and he gives them a look that's nothing short of uncomfortable.

“Really?” he asks, because _seriously_ , this is a _love seat_. Three people was a stretch, three people and Hunk was impossible. He glances back at Keith, who's looking just as uncertain.

“Do you have any better ideas? Gonna _stand_ and watch the movie?” Pidge asks, and that was that. Lance ends up smooshed between Hunk and a very disgruntled Keith, and it's nothing short of a miracle that they manage to all fit on there at all.

The movie starts, and just as Lance is finally finding a position that's halfway comfortable, his phone buzzes in his pocket. He squirms around, elbowing Hunk in the process, (“ _Sorry_!”) before he finally manages to wiggle his phone out of his pocket.

He frowns at the unknown number, before reading the message:

 

> [ **4:17PM** ]: Hey. It's keith.
> 
>  

And blinking. Oh, that's right, he hadn't had the chance to even get Keith's number.

 

> [ **4:18PM** ]: 'sup :^)
> 
>  

Lance texts back, setting his phone into his lap instead of his pocket. He keeps his gaze trained on the movie, but sees Keith out of the corner of his eye squint and frown at the message. Lance has to bite his lip to keep from laughing, before leaning over a bit.

“Try turning it sideways.”

Keith gives him a confused glance, before turning his phone.

And then the look of realization on Keith's face is absolutely priceless. Lance almost wishes he could take a picture of this moment and frame it on his wall. He can't help that a loud snort comes out: he's never been a quiet laugher, but when he glances over and Pidge is sending him a _Look_ , he decides that maybe it's time to learn. He moves one hand over his mouth, before unlocking his phone and sends Keith another text.

 

> [ **4:20PM** ]: look there are more. :^O :^D u can even do it without the nose ;)
> 
>  

It's not that Ferris Bueller isn't an amazing movie, but the pure awe on Keith's face is way more entertaining than a film he's had to have seen at _least_ four other times. He does turn his attention back toward the screen as Keith pecks at the keys on his phone, but can't deny the little bit of glee he feels when his phone buzzes again.

 

> [ **4:23PM** ]: ,':^)
> 
>  

Lance frowns.

 

> [ **4:23PM** ]: ???
> 
>  

And his answer comes a minute later:

 

> [ **4:24PM** ]: It's you. You always have one eyebrow raised
> 
>  

Lance doesn't know whether to be amused, offended, or flattered. Nobody's ever sent him his own personal smiley before, but _maybe_ that was a good thing.

Well, whatever.

 

> [ **4:25PM** ]: omg. Lol wtf
> 
>  

A pretty neutral response, if he thought so himself. But he could practically _feel_ Keith puzzling next to him, and when he glanced over he half expected to see steam coming out of his ears with how hard he was thinking.

 

> [ **4:27PM** ]: What's that?
> 
>  

And oh, right, of course Keith wouldn't know any kind of internet speak. Well, he can hardly have a phone and be connected to people in 2016 without knowing simple terms like that!

… And others.

 

> [ **4:28PM** ]: acronyms dude. LOL = laugh out loud WTF = what the fuck OMG = oh my god. It's like BOFA
> 
>  

Lance could hardly contain himself when his phone buzzed again.

 

> [ **4:29PM** ]: What's BOFA?

 

His fingers had never slid faster against the smooth glass of his phone.

 

> [ **4:29PM** ]: BOFA DEEZ NUTZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

 

Keith sets the phone down and doesn't text him back. Lance is biting the inside of his cheek to keep from physically busting out laughing—god, he would _have_ to show Pidge these texts later. They would totally give him a high-five for that one.

After twenty minutes or so go by and he still doesn't get a text back, Lance thinks their little back-and-forth is done for sure. Pidge moves to sprawl out across Hunk's lap, leaving a little more space for Keith and Lance. They're still _uncomfortably_ close, but at least a little more comfortably so, and at least now they aren't practically on top of each other. It makes it easier to pay attention to the movie, too, so he's reasonably surprised when his phone buzzes again.

Especially when it's Keith. Again.

 

> [ **4:50PM** ]: I missed too much of this movie I think. Who is this kid

 

Lance bites back a smile.

 

> [ **4:50PM** ]: whyyyy are u texting me when u could talk to me and I could just text back my answers? Lol wouldnt that be easier for u
> 
>  
> 
> [ **4:51PM** ]: It's weird to talk out loud and have to read the answers back in text.
> 
>  
> 
> [ **4:52PM** ]: lol so ur brain doesnt work that way? i see
> 
>  
> 
> [ **4:53PM** ]: At least my brain works
> 
>  
> 
> [ **4:54PM** ]: OOOH SICK BURN!!!!!!! U HURT ALL TWO OF MY FEELINGS

 

Lance gets so caught up in his phone, in their little back-and-forth, that he doesn't even notice that the movie's stopped until Pidge clears their throat.

_Loudly_.

Keith even looks up from his message, finger hovering over the screen like he was paused mid-sentence. Pidge gives Lance a flat stare from Hunk's lap, still managing to look disappointed, even upside-down.

“You two are sitting _right next to each other_.” they point out. “And you aren't even pretending to watch the movie at this point.

“I have been watching it!” Lance says, crossing his arms in front of him defensively. Pidge's frown deepens.

“Oh yeah? And what's going on in the movie?”

“Well, Ferris--”

“I'm asking Keith.”

Lance twists around in his spot to look at Keith, who has a face that just screams _busted_. He sends Lance a pleading look—but Lance just shrugs. _No_ _way_ was he facing the wrath of Pidge even more.

Finally, Keith picks up the whiteboard again.

“ _ **Sorry**_.”

Pidge pinches the bridge of their nose. “It's fine. This was mostly just to see if anything related to the 80s would jog your memory, but you obviously don't know the movie after all.” they sit back up, causing Lance to be squished back into Keith again. He grunts.

“Pidge. This four-person-on-one-couch thing, is the worst idea you've ever had.”

“Uh, it's your stupid mini-couch.” they grumble, and then, quietly tack on, “Like _you're_ really complaining.”

Lance tips his head and frowns. “Sorry, what was that?”

“Nothing.” Pidge says quickly. Lance squints, suspicious at the glance they share with Hunk. “Let's just finish the movie, and then me and Hunk will get going since you two obviously aren't interested in watching any more.”

“What... Stop saying it like that! I'm just helping Keith out with texting. He's already faster.” Lance smirks at Pidge's face. “Keith, am I _wrong_?”

“ _ **No**_.” the whiteboard says, and Lance raises his hand for Keith to high-five. He stares at it for a second, before sighing and obliging. Lance's smug grin only gets bigger.

Pidge flops back onto Hunk's lap with a sigh. “Okay, whatever. Let's just watch the movie. Also, it totally looks like you just got left hanging.”

“Well I _didn't_! And sure, sure, fine. Just trying to help out our buddy Keith here, but it's fine, this is helping too. Probably _less_. But still. Helping.”

“Shut _up_ , Lance.”

 

* * *

 

It's just past midnight, and Lance is somewhere between consciousness and knocked-the-fuck-outness, when his phone buzzes.

Once.

Then twice.

And then three times, and _damn it_ he should really stop sticking his vibrating phone under his head when he's trying to sleep. He grumbles something that is probably only comprehensible to someone who is half awake, pulling out his phone from under his pillow and squinting through the light to read the words on screen.

 

> **Hunk** : Sorry if I'm waking you up
> 
> **Hunk** : But we have some things to talk about
> 
> **Hunk** : And Pidge insists it can't wait

 

He's being messaged through their group chat, that has just the three of them in it. Of course. Lance groans and sits up, resting his back against a pillow.

 

> **Lance** : whats up

 

And he loves them both of them—so very, _very_ much—but this better actually be important, because there are very few things Lance prioritizes over his beauty sleep.

 

> **Pidge** : I think we found some info about Keith. BUT FIRST
> 
> **Pidge** : we gotta have
> 
> **Pidge** : a Talk.

 

His head is still a little cloudy, but Lance takes the bait. They weren't going to let him go to sleep on time now anyway, that much was clear.

 

> **Lance** : fck
> 
> **Lance** : what
> 
> **Pidge** : K just gonna be up front with this
> 
> **Pidge** : Do you have ~feelings~ for Keith

 

Never mind. Lance was way too fucking tired to be having anything close to this conversation. He considers just turning off his phone for the night, and facing the wrath of Pidge later, but the thought of the consequences that might entail keep him from hitting that mute button.

 

> **Lance** : god. What???????
> 
> **Hunk** : No shame bro.
> 
> **Pidge** : You were literally flirting with him.... all day today so.

 

If Lance's eyes could roll any more, they would roll straight into the back of his head, and probably get stuck back there, and whoever found him would scream _way_ loud because that would be a sight way scarier than the actual ghost living on his couch.

 

> **Lance** : no
> 
> **Pidge** : I mean it would be ok
> 
> **Lance** : no?
> 
> **Pidge** : but he's a ghost.
> 
> **Lance** : ???!?
> 
> **Pidge** : I didn't think that him being a ghost was news to you! I'm sorry

 

Sometimes, Lance just wants to throttle Pidge. In a loving way. Toss their tiny little body out of a window, with care, to a net filled with soft stuffed animals below.

 

> **Lance** : i hate you
> 
> **Pidge** : I'm just calling it how I see it sorrry.

 

How was he supposed to respond to any of this?

>  
> 
> **Pidge** : But seriously. we're worried because you probably havent thought this through because youre lance but keith is a ghost and no one else can even see him and people will probably think youre crazy and you cant date a ghost lance he cant even leave your apartment
> 
> **Lance** : I am literally so confused rn
> 
> **Hunk** : Plus he's gotta... Ascend... Or whatever. Probably
> 
> **Lance** : wtf
> 
> **Pidge** : we're just looking out for you. It is kinda cute tho
> 
> **Lance** : I DON'T HAVE FEELINGS FOR KEITH?

 

There's finally a beat of silence, where his phone isn't buzzing and the little typing bar doesn't even come up at the bottom. Flirting? Lance had flirted before, he flirted with girls all the time, he flirted with Allura. It was nothing like that. Did these two have any idea what flirting looked like?

At _all_?

Pidge is the one to break the silence.

 

> **Pidge** : Are you blushing right now?

 

Oh, shit. He totally was—but anyone would be blushing at something like this! He was being accused and harrased! Lance scowls.

 

> **Lance** : no.
> 
> **Hunk** : <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile>
> 
> **Pidge** : OMG
> 
> **Pidge** : Lmfao
> 
> **Lance** : ???
> 
> **Pidge** : Say it out loud

 

“The Nile.” Lance tries. “The Nile. The Nile? The... _Nile_.”

 

> **Lance** : Still don't get it.
> 
> **Hunk** : Nevermind.

 

A long, drawn-out sigh escapes from Lance. He's so tired—can't they just be done already with this?

>  
> 
> **Pidge** : Whatever. We warned you so don't come crying to us in like a month when we're right
> 
> **Lance** : k ill keep it in mind. was there anything else you wanted to harass me about

 

Lance watches as Pidge and Hunk's typing icons both come up—and then go away—and then come up again. He frowns. It never takes either of them this long to respond, and especially not together.

Finally, Hunk must decide on what to write because he's the first one to send his message through.

 

> **Hunk** : I did some digging on your apartment, because I thought maybe it was significant
> 
> **Hunk** : that Keith couldn't leave, and I'd find out some useful info.
> 
> **Hunk** : I did.
> 
> **Hunk** : There was a fire there in 1986. They rebuilt the entire complex in 1987 because it basically all burned down.

 

Lance scratches the back of his head. That was the right time, probably, but what else?

 

> **Lance** : ok...ay
> 
> **Lance** : so were the records of anyone named keith who died in the fire or
> 
> **Hunk** : Not explicitly
> 
> **Hunk** : Only records of the families that lived there... and an article about a guy who ran back in to save his younger brother
> 
> **Hunk** : dropped him out of a window to the firefighters below but never came back out

 

Whether it was from his sleep-deprived brain, or maybe the fact that he just wasn't as smart as Hunk and Pidge, he didn't know. All Lance did know, was that he was obviously not drawing the same connections here as they were.

 

> **Lance** : so was keith the guy??? im not getting it.
> 
> **Pidge** : Just wait.
> 
> **Hunk** : Yeah well that kid's name was Takashi Shirogane.

 

Lance blinks once, twice, trying to figure out exactly why that name sounded so familiar. He wasn't a celebrity? No... A customer who came into the store a lot? Maybe, but that didn't seem quite right--

_Oh_.

 

> **Lance** : PROF SHIRO???
> 
> **Pidge** : There we go.

 

Gaping at his phone, Lance suddenly feels _very_ awake now. If Professor Shiro had an older brother, at any point, he never mentioned it—but then again, why would he? It's not exactly everyday conversation. He rubs his fingers with his temples.

 

> **Pidge** : Lance, this is a start but we can't move on without knowing for sure
> 
> **Pidge** : we need you to ask Keith if he recognizes that name... Or at the very least the last name
> 
> **Hunk** : It might have been his last name too.
> 
> **Lance** : Right now?
> 
> **Pidge** : Well like, as soon as you can
> 
> **Pidge** : maybe when you wake up if you want.

 

He pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales. He wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep anyway, not _now_ , so sooner better than later right?

 

> **Lance** : k. ill let you guys know.

 

And then he tossed his phone back under his pillow.

Despite the fact that he's pretty awake, Lance still sort of feels like a zombie when he's walking down the hall—he's got a pretty strict bedtime most nights, actually, and breaking it is something his body is obviously _not_ happy about. He clears his throat when he reaches the living room, and Keith looks up, eyebrows raised.

“Oh. Hi?”

Lance tries to give Keith a smile but it probably looks more like a grimace. “Hey.”

Keith's resting face quickly turns into a frown.

“What's wrong.”

It isn't phrased like a question, and damn Lance for wearing his heart on his sleeve so easily. He moves around and slides down into the couch, on the open seat that Keith leaves for him. Pidge and Hunk's earlier conversation comes to mind, for a moment, but Lance ignores it—there were obviously way bigger fish to fry than to worry about something like that right now, anyway.

“So this is gonna sound kind of weird, but Pidge and Hunk... Think they might have found something out. About you. Maybe.”

Keith's eyes widen, and Lance thinks he might just see a little bit of hope flicker through them, even if just as fleeting as a millisecond. Damn his expressive eyes. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Lance says. “Yeah, but like your name... Wasn't explicitly mentioned anywhere, I guess, or something—I don't know, Hunk and Pidge could probably explain this all a lot better and they're way better at putting together pieces anyway. But they wanted me to ask you if maybe... Knowing this name would help jog your memory, or something.”

Keith nods. “What is it?”

“Uh... Shirogane? Takashi Shirogane, specifically, but maybe just Shirogane...”

Lance trails off when Keith's expression changes, from tentatively curious and hopeful, to almost concerned. He looks like...

He looks like he's remembering something.

Keith's face stays like that for a few seconds, and Lance realizes he's holding his breath and Keith looks up at meets his eyes.

“I feel like... Yeah. That's really familiar.”

Lance lets out that breath. “Like, familiar as in you remembered something? Anything at all?” he's leaning in now, and Keith squints his eyes again. Lance realizes this is something he does when he's trying to focus.

“It's like... Nothing is coming to mind specifically, but it's like... Something is trying? Shit...” Keith is looking more and more frustrated by the second, and Lance shakes his head.

“Hey, wait, don't overdo it right? This is something! This is definitely something. I can tell them and they'll be glad to know, and maybe they can find out more from here. Feeling like you can remember anything is definitely better than just having no idea. I'm sure there's a lead here. Somewhere.” he's honestly just rambling, sort of—but it must get through to Keith, because his face smooths out and he looks less agitated.

“God, it's like it's just... _Almost_ there.”

“Maybe if you give your brain a break it'll come to you?”

Keith looks at him doubtfully, but Lance shrugs. “I may be a college drop-out, but I learned a _few_ things about how the human brain works in my time. Sometimes, all it needs is a break.” he reaches for the TV and flips it on, giving Keith a grin. “Down for some TV?”

“Don't you need to sleep?” Keith asks, but doesn't immediately reject him. Lance shakes his head.

“Uh, no, all that exciting news kind of... Messed with me, I guess. Ha-ha.” it's an obviously fake, tinny laugh, but Keith doesn't call him out on it. Lance feels grateful. Keith never gives him a definite answer—which Lance takes as a _yes_ , and starts up Netflix like usual.

He thinks, belatedly, about getting up to send a message back to Pidge and Hunk about what happened. But his phone is under his pillow, which is in his bed, which is _so_ far. A couple more hours couldn't hurt them, right? Just while he watched a few episodes of something...

He's so tired, Lance doesn't even notice when he subconsciously leans into Keith as he doses off, even after the conversation with Hunk and Pidge earlier in the night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to my friend jerri, who upon reading this and realizing that keith didn't know anything about memes DMed me on twitter and demanded that lance use BOFA on him. this one's for you, because having lance meme on keith was something that this fic (and all fics??? honestly) definitely needed.
> 
> all of the blockquoting in this chapter killed me to format, rip.
> 
> everyone who's reading this weird fic is awesome and i love you!!


	5. The Illness of Lance Sanchez

From the minute Lance stirs awake, he knows something is wrong.

First off, he's uncomfortably cold—despite the fact that there's a blanket thrown on top of him, he can feel the goosebumps all over his body, and it takes him a few seconds to realize that he's not in his own bed. He's on the couch, sprawled out as far as he can be on the love seat.

(Which, honestly, isn't even that far, and his legs are curled up and nearly pressed into his chest. It's not all that comfortable.)

Secondly, he had some kind of dream—and as he comes to consciousness he quickly loses grasp of any and all details—but he can tell approximately _who_ it was about, by the weird way his stomach clenches when he leans up and sees Keith on his phone sitting on a box a few feet away.

_That_ was definitely Hunk and Pidge's fault. He makes a mental note to get some sort of revenge on them.

Keith must notice Lance's moving around, because he looks up from his phone and gives a slight nod.

“Yo.”

Lance groans in response.

“What... Time is it.” he asks, because he realizes he left his phone in his bedroom and _hey,_ isn't this his blanket from his _bed_?

“8:07AM.” Keith answers, as Lance shifts up in the couch to push the covers down slightly. Seeing the confusion on his face, Keith continues, “I grabbed your blanket from in your room. Hope you don't mind. You started shivering.”

It should be an innocent gesture, devoid of any kind of meaning, but for some reason Lance feels hyper-sensitive to anything related to Keith.

_Again_ , Pidge and Hunk's fault.

He does the most reasonable thing he can think of, faced with potential _feelings_ , and wraps the blanket around him as tightly as it can go before rolling off of the couch with a _thump_. Lance can't see him, from his blanket-burrito, but judging by the total and utter silence he can only assume that Keith is at an utter loss for words as he rolls himself past the couch, out of the living room, and down the hall.

He has work at 9:30. For normal people, more than an hour was probably plenty of time to get ready for work. But Lance usually allots himself at least two, and that combined with the fact that he was feeling particularly sluggish today, for some reason, leaves him staring into his reflection in the bathroom mirror blankly.

He brings his hand up to his messy hair, and pulls his fingers through it.

“I can probably pull off the bedhead look.” he tells himself. “Just for one day.”

His voice says c _onfidence is key_ , but his eyes say _just fucking bury me_. Rubbing at the dark circles, he doesn't think he can blame _that_ one on Pidge and Hunk.

But he can try, anyway.

To be totally honest, he isn't even sure why he feels so terrible. At first, he thinks it's because he slept all night on the couch—but even after getting dressed and waking up more, he doesn't feel any better. It's almost like being hung-over, except without any of the fun the night before.

He finally shuffles back out to the living room, collapsing on the couch with a groan. He only has a few more minutes until he needs to leave before he's late, but his motivation meter is at approximately negative 5%. Keith sends him a look, eyebrows furrowed..

“... Are you okay?” there's actual, genuine concern there and _damn_ it Lance still can't look at him. He can't even remember the dream, this is ridiculous.

“Yes.” he says, automatically, and then pauses. Really, what was there to gain by lying? “Well. No. Maybe. I've been better. Probably just tired.”

Lance is good at denial. Real good.

“You look... Bad.” Keith responds, and Lance can't even make fun of his lack of eloquence because he is _that_ severely lacking in energy. He simply grunts in response.

Keith frowns. “Are you going to work? Because you really don't look like you should be going anywhere.”

Lance _does_ manage to muster up energy to give a response to that.

“Well, I have a roommate, but he can't get a job due to a disability called _being dead_ so I kind of have to pay all the bills.” it comes out snippier than he means it to, and by the time he's said it he already wishes he could take it back. But the damage has been done; Keith scowls.

“Oh, well _excuse_ me, I'll just go find my grave and reenter my dead body and go find somewhere that hires zombies!” he snaps back, and Lance huffs.

“You've been dead for like _twenty_ _years_ dude, so you'd better start looking at Halloween shops because that's the only place that would hire a bunch of _bones_!”

Keith opens his mouth to respond again but Lance stands up and sticks his tongue out, before stomping his way out the door. He realizes, belatedly, that he never grabbed anything to eat—but with the crappy way he's feeling now, he's not particularly hungry anyway.

 

* * *

 

Lance feels like he's dying.

He feels like he's dying, and he's only halfway through his shift, and honestly dying would probably be preferable to _feeling_ like he was dying. Why did so much of his life suddenly revolve around death? This probably wasn't healthy at all.

“I feel like I'm dying.” he says, aloud, mostly to himself—although Allura happens to be standing nearby. She looks up at him, and it's not anger like he half-expects from her because he's been slacking off. Instead, she just frowns.

“You look like it.” she says, moving closer to him. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Define alright.” there's a ton of used vinyls sitting in front of him, that he hasn't even _begun_ to quality check and put into sleeves yet. She places her hand on his forehead and gasps.

“Lance, you're burning up!”

Normally, this would be the perfect opportunity for him to make some sort of suggestive comment. But instead, he looks down at the ground for a moment, to ponder why it seems to be moving so much. Allura's gaze grows more concerned by the second.

“Have you had anything to drink today?”

“No,” he answers her, eyes still focused on the wobbly tiled-floor. “My throat hurts.” he says, as if that's explanation enough for being totally and completely dehydrated.

“Oh my God.” she says, and that's the last thing Lance remembers before his legs give out and the world goes black.

 

* * *

 

“Lance, wake up.”

An accented voice is talking to him. He has to think about this for a second, let it mull it his brain the feels like someone stuck it in a blender, before he realizes the obvious: Allura is talking to him.

This definitely sounds like incentive to open his eyes to Lance, but somehow it just seems to be too much energy. He decides not to.

“Lance. If you don't wake up and drink this, I'm going to have to call the ER.”

_That_ wakes him up. Hospital trip? How about no. Slowly, he opens his eyes, squinting in an attempt to focus them. Silver hair and a general brown blotch: that's Allura. Something red behind her? Keith?

Was he at home?

He closes his eyes again. Too much going on; it's easier to think this way.

“ _Lance_ , I'm serious. You have to have some water.”

Oh, right, threat of the ER. Shit. Evil woman. Lance finally reaches out and grabs at the glass in her hand, eyes open just barely enough to see where he's reaching. He puts the glass to his mouth and swallows, wincing— _God_ , that hurt. A low, _very_ unmanly whine escapes from him. He thinks he hears Allura let out a sigh of relief.

“You need to keep drinking that. And open your eyes. Do you know where we are?”

Finally, he opens his eyes the rest of the way and tries to blink away the blurriness. Home. They were at his home. Allura was in his home and... How did they _get_ here? He takes another very small sip of the water in his hand and groans.

“My apartment?”

“Yes!” She seems way too excited for the situation. “Okay, so you're coherent enough to know that at least. Keep drinking that, okay?”

He nods, but now that his eyes are focusing, he stares straight past her—at where Keith is staring at him with an oddly concerned look on his face. It relaxes a bit when he realizes that Lance can focus his gaze onto him, but he doesn't say anything. Probably for the best, Lance doesn't want to slip up and answer him with Allura here.

He attempts to pour the rest of the glass into his mouth—might as well bite the bullet, right?--but Allura squeaks and pulls it away from him.

“No, no, slowly! Oh goodness, I really should be taking you to the hospital... Oh, Jeez, I won't! Stop making that face.”

Lance lets out a sigh of relief. And then pauses. His throat protests every time he speaks, but he ignores the pain.

“... How did we get here?”

He's hoarse, hoarser than he was earlier that day for sure. Allura frowns.

“You don't remember? You really must have been out of it. I had to drive you back here because there was no way you could get back by yourself.”

And then Lance feels bad. _Really_ bad, because that means that she probably had to emergency call-in Coran, and that meant that he was by himself, there, in the middle of the day. He takes another small sip of his water.

“Oh, thanks.” he says. “You can, uh, go back to the store though. I'm awake now.”

She gives him a flat look. “I can't leave you here by yourself.” crossing her arms in front of her, her look switches from unamused to worried as she mumbles. “But I don't know who else to bring here, and I need to get back to the store...”

“Just go. I'm fine.” Lance tries to insist. She looks unimpressed.

“Oh, I'm sure. You fainted in the middle of work an hour ago. Maybe _fine_ means something else in Lance-world, but you are not _fine_ by anyone else's definition of the word.” she sighs.

Lance doesn't notice that Keith has the whiteboard in his hands, behind Allura, until it's already too late. And even then, he isn't sure what he's supposed to do about it, because yelling out “ _Don't_!” to thin air definitely isn't going to make her leave any faster. He watches, helplessly, as Keith tosses the whiteboard at her feet in front of her.

She jumps about a foot in there air when it lands, with a solid _thump_.

“ _ **I'll take care of him**_.”

Lance is internally weeping already, because this was going to be a fucking nightmare.

“... What's that.” Allura asks, quietly and surprisingly calm, for someone who has just witnessed paranormal activity. Lance groans, loudly.

“Keith, _why_.”

“Because she isn't going to leave you here by yourself. If you can handle it, and Pidge and Hunk can handle it, this lady can too.” Keith responds. He's standing in front of the TV, just behind Allura, and if Lance wasn't so incapacitated he might attempt to kill someone who's already dead. _Way to complicate things, Keith_!! he wants to scream, but settles for another dramatic groan.

Keith picks up the whiteboard from the ground—her eyes grow wider, but to her credit, she doesn't immediately run screaming in the other direction. He draws a little arrow pointing up, and then just below it, writes:

 

“ _ **I'm Keith**_

_**I'm a ghost.** _

_**I've been here for awhile now. It's OK.**_ ”

 

As if _anything_ about that was even _remotely_ okay. Allura freezes in place, then looks from the whiteboard, to Lance, to the whiteboard again, and then back to Lance. He swallows. It's full of pain, just like his entire life. _Really_ , all Lance wants to do is go back to sleep.

“Lance. What's going on?”

“I mean. You read it.” honestly, Lance has never wanted to trade places with Keith before, but he doubts that ghosts get fevers. _And_ if Lance was a ghost he would probably just draw dicks on steamed-up mirrors and stuff. Allura blinks.

“Is this some kind of prank?”

Lance almost says ' _Do I look like I could be pranking you right now_ ,' but instead settles on the much less sarcastic, “No.”

She doesn't look scared, exactly. Maybe like she's uncomfortable, like not knowing where to look or stand with a ghost present freaks her out more than the idea of a ghost being present at all. Lance isn't sure whether that's a _more_ rational response, or a weirder one.

“Is... This related to that ghost question you asked me the other day?”

He's kind of surprised she remembers that conversation. “Maybe.”

She squints at him.

“Can I sleep?”

“Drink more water. Um... Keith, was it?”

Lance picks the glass up and takes another sip, watching as Keith turns the board around to reply. She asks him a question—he's not really focusing on what it was, because sleep is _really_ calling at him again, but he notices her hesitant, but genuine smile. Wow, most customers don't even get a genuine one out of her.

He can't wait for the inevitable conversation that's going to have to happen now. ' _Remember that ghost you met at my house? That's your fiancee's dead brother! Ha! Small world, am I right_?'

Slowly and silently slumping over, so as to not alert either of them, he closes his eyes and dozes off.

 

* * *

 

Lance swears it feels like he's only been asleep for two seconds before he's woken up again, this time by Keith.

“Drink this.” he says.

“Mmmf.” Lance replies. He opens up his eyes a little bit, just enough to send Keith an angry look. “I was sleepin'.”

“You have to stay hydrated.” Keith was offering the cup out to him, so Lance finally grabs it (not without another dirty look, but whatever) and makes an appreciative noise when it isn't just water again.

“Mmm, Gatorade. The best.”

“Glad you like it.” Keith responds, pulling it back out of Lance's hands before he can down the entire thing. “But not so much. Allura said to go easy on the liquids. Enough to hydrate but too much will make you sick.”

Lance groans. “Wow, thanks _Doctor_ Keith.”

Keith looks away. “Guess you're feeling better.”

“Probably would be, if someone hadn't woken me up to make me drink Gatorade and then taken it away.” he scoffs. “Where's Allura?”

“Left about thirty minutes ago. But she gave me instructions on what to do, so it's fine.” Keith pauses for a moment. “... She's nice.”

Lance almost says ' _Yeah, well she's getting married to your brother so back off'_ before stopping himself because oh _yeah_ , he hadn't had that conversation yet. And he totally wasn't going to have it when he felt like he was hit by a truck, and then dragged along the road for fifteen miles stuck to the tires.

So, instead, he nods. “She is.”

They're both silent for a second, before Keith speaks up again. “... Your girlfriend?”

Lance, taking another sip, nearly spits out the Gatorade. “ _What_? No. She's... Engaged. _Not_ to me.”

If Keith is trying to not look pleased at this, then he's doing a terrible job. Lance would probably rib him about this more, if he wasn't sicker than a dog.

“She's just my boss.” Lance clarifies, further. Keith nods, then scowls at Lance's droopy-eyed look.

“You can't sleep until you finish that cup. And you _can't_ finish it all at once.” Lance pouts, and Keith rolls his eyes. “That look doesn't work on me.”

“If I started crying, would it?”

“ _Please_ don't get any more dehydrated.” he sounds like he's trying to come off as annoyed, but there was definitely another edge to his voice. Lance almost feels guilty, for a second there. “Allura said you could take some medicine, but not until you had some more to drink because it'll knock you out.”

“Like I could be any sleepier,” Lance complains. He takes another sip—almost there. So close. “What kind is it? Did she go buy it?”

“Yeah. She seemed upset that you had basically nothing in your bathroom.” Keith shrugs, “It's Nyquil.”

Lance frowns from behind the cup as he takes another drink. “ _Oh_.”

“What?”

“I probably shouldn't take it.” he says, and Keith scowls at him.

“Why _not_?” he asks, crossing his arms in front of him. Shit, Lance really wasn't in the right state of mind right now to fight with him. “It'll make you feel better. And you can't tell me you don't feel like crap. Your fever needs to come down.”

Lance groans. “I, Um...”

Keith stares at him expectantly.

“I—There's something about night-time cold medicines that make me... Do weird shit. Like sleepwalk, okay? And I end up in really weird places.” truth be told, Lance wasn't entirely sure he trusted drugged out, unconscious-him around Keith right now. Keith looks at him like he's stupid.

“Okay, and I'll be here to help you lay back down. I won't let you leave your apartment or anything like that. Besides, it's all we've got so it has to do.”

Lance buries himself back into the covers. Well, maybe if he drank a little bit more than he was supposed to, the medicine would keep him down for the whole night.

 

* * *

 

Nothing ever works out the way Lance wants it to, of course. _Down for the whole nigh_ t turned into down for three hours, until he wakes up, simultaneously shivering _and_ covered in his own sweat.

The only thing he can barely manage to think through his fever-and-medicine addled brain, is how utterly gross this was.

“Lance?” he hears Keith's voice, but it sounds far away. It might help if his eyes were open... “Lance, are you awake?”

He makes some sort of inhuman noise in response. He can't see Keith's face, but he can imagine the concern in his eyes, the way his mouth is probably turned down, the freckles that dot across his nose and fade off when they hit his cheeks.

It's a realistic enough image, he decides. Surprisingly detailed.

“Shit,” Lance hears him swear, almost softly. “You're—Do I cover you up with more blankets or... Crap, I should call Allura--”

“Don't.” he manages to gasp out. “I'm fine.”

“You're literally shaking,” Keith points out, and Lance feels his presence move closer. “Maybe your fever is just breaking...”

There's a palm pressed to his forehead, suddenly. Lance barely cracks open his eyes and lifts a hand from under the covers, wrapping his fingers around Keith's wrists.

He freezes.

It's blurry, but he can see Keith's shocked face even through half-open eyes. He thinks about releasing his wrist, but Keith isn't making any movements to jerk his hand away—and besides, it sort of feels nice. Lance doesn't have the energy right now to fight with his own thoughts.

“Don't call her,” he croaks. “Just... Stay. Here.”

“... Where?” Keith asks, quietly. It's almost a murmur under his breath. Lance tightens his grip on his wrist a little bit.

“ _Here_.” Lance thinks his voice might be starting to go hoarse, but at the moment, he doesn't care. He eyes slide closed again. “Pidge said you might... Ascend, or something. Just stay.”

Keith doesn't respond, just moves his hand slightly to brush the hair that's stuck to Lance's forehead back. It's an intimate gesture—too intimate, probably, Lance's brain supplies to him. The corners of his lips quirk up anyway.

“You're too unguarded like this.” Keith finally says. Lance can't seem to manage a laugh, but does give him a toothy, sleepy grin. “I'm not going anywhere.”

“You're the best worst roommate ever.”

“You're delirious.”

Lance nods. “Maybe. Hey... If I die, let's haunt this place together.”

Keith snatches his hand back. Lance pouts at the loss of contact. “You aren't dying.” he snaps.

“I _might_.”

“No.” he says, and then again with more force, “ _No_. This is just a cold, and you're fine. You're just a big baby.”

“You're mean, Nurse Keith.” Lance groans, shifting around on the couch. He pulls the blankets back up, over his hands again now that they're free. “I'm going back to bed.”

Keith doesn't say anything back, and Lance thinks he might have gone into a different room. Just as he's about to doze off again, he hears, very quietly:

“Goodnight, Lance.”

 

* * *

 

 

Lance's sticky fever dreams are _particularly_ vivid, with the intervals he's been waking up at. Every two hours or so, he knows—because at some point, either he got up and got his phone, or Keith brought it to him. Sometimes Keith notices when he stirs and brings him something to drink, other times Lance just checks the time and falls back to sleep.

Either way, he knows for sure that every single time he wakes up it's from a dream about Keith, and waking up, seeing Keith, and then falling asleep thinking about the dream he just woke up from sends him into some never-ending Keith dream spiral.

This is not Pidge's fault.

This is not Hunk's fault.

(He might still pull some revenge on them, but that was neither here nor there.)

Light is filtering in through the living room window, right onto Lance's face, when he has the epiphany. He's sure it's a beautiful sight, covered in sweat and probably some drool, as the sun's golden rays light up his features and make him truly ethereal.

He probably, _probably_ wants to kiss Keith's ghost-lips, and feel his fingers brush Lance's hair out of his face again, which probably, _probably_ means that he has a crush.

“Shit.” he says, out loud, and who even cares if Keith hears him because it doesn't matter anyway. Lance can't keep something like that to himself, anyway, he'd probably explode. This is the worst realization he's had since that time when he was eleven and climbed up a tree and _realized_ he couldn't get back down.

He'd rather be stuck in a tree, sixteen feet off the ground.

Plus, now he'll have to tell Pidge that they were right.

“Shit again.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last part was going to be made into the beginning of chapter 6, but even i was getting tired of waiting around for lance's epiphany
> 
> i'm kind of agitated by this chapter. i edited it so many times that i actually kind of.... rewrote it, which is why it's up later than my other ones have been. @_@ im done staring at it
> 
> on a completely different note, the most flattering thing EVER has been happening: people are asking me questions about the fic!! which is so amazing to me because that means that you guys are interested enough to HAVE questions. i can probably answer almost anything related to how ghosts work in this fic, so you can either leave a comment or hit me up at my tumblr: [yordlecompstomp](http://yordlecompstomp.tumblr.com) and as long as it isn't spoilery i'll tell you what i have written down in my "ghost rules" doc lmao
> 
> THANKS AGAIN!!


	6. The Polaroid of Keith Shirogane (PART I. Lance)

Being Lance was rough, sometimes.

Like when you come to terms with the fact that you have feelings, for someone who's actually stuck in your apartment, so you leave and try to go to work but you're still sick and your boss that you passed out on is there and freaks out when you walk in and tries to send you back home, but you can't go back home because then you have to stare into _pretty violet eyes_ and your only two friends are in class so you plant yourself firmly in the middle of the floor in your workplace while your boss threatens to fire you.

Rough, rough life.

“ _Please_ , Allura,” Lance begs, but he's still congested so the ' _please'_ sounds more like ' _blease'_. “I've been cooped up in home for _forever_ now, I'm probably not even sick anymore!”

“No!” she says. From across the room. With her hand covering her nose, like she's afraid he's going to pass on some kind of deadly illness. “At home is where you _should_ be, where you won't contaminate everyone and everything! _Get off the floor_!”

Despite the fact that she is using her Authoritative Voice, Lance stays firmly planted. “What kind of boss doesn't let any employee work when they show up on time?”

“The kind that's concerned for the well-being of their employees.” she snaps. He pouts.

“I can't even stay in the back, by the breakroom table? I won't even touch anything.”

“ _No_.”

“Okay, great. I'll just be back there if you need me for anything.” he says. She lets out an agitated noise, but moves out of the way as he walks past. Not without a very, very dirty look though.

Rough, _rough_ life.

She stomps back there after about twenty minutes, still in an obviously bad mood.

On second thought, maybe he really didn't want to be here. He figured she'd cool down by now.

Allura slaps one palm onto the table in front of them, and Lance pales. He doesn't even need to look at her face to feel the anger coming off of her in waves.

“What is so _wrong_ with being sick in your _own_ house?” she demands, and suddenly Lance remembers that not much really gets by her when she tacks on, “Did you and your ghost fight, or something?”

“He-He isn't _my_ ghost!” at least Lance can blame his reddening face on being sick. Allura's expression doesn't change. “I told you, I'm just trying to get out of the house for a little bit. _Stir crazy_.”

“It's _been_ a little bit.” she says. “And by the time you take the train back to your apartment, it'll have been nearly a whole hour, so--”

“Wait.” Lance says, holding up his arms in surrender. He could sense he was dangerously close to being kicked out, for real. “I have something to talk to you about. Uh, something I wanted to... Ask you?”

Well, not really, but—they were the only ones there, right now, and he had to ask her eventually.

Allura leans back from the table and crosses her arms, eyebrow raised. “I'm listening.”

There was really no good way to lead into this, as far as Lance could figure out. At least she already knew about Keith. He hadn't been very happy about that at the time, but it was working out... In his favor _so_ far, at least.

“Did Shiro ever mention a brother?”

Allura shifts her weight to her other foot, and stares at Lance for a silent moment. “... Yes.”

“Was his name Keith?”

Lance's question hangs in the air, unanswered, as Allura chews on her cheek. She's thinking pretty hard about something.

“Yes,” she finally says. “And I think I know where you're going with this, but—Keith is a fairly common name--”

“I know.” Lance cuts her off. “But Hunk and Pidge dug up some stuff. Here...”

He pulls out his phone and reads to her the conversation, the details, even pulls up a link that Pidge had sent him later. She's completely unreadable as they scroll through the article detailing the fire.

“... I don't know. It is pretty damning evidence, but...” she clicks her tongue. “Wait.”

Lance watches as she fishes her phone out of her pocket, and pulls up Shiro's Facebook. He raises a brow as she digs through his albums, but doesn't want to break her concentration with any stupid remarks. They're both leaning over the table now, staring at her phone, and after a few moments of endless scrolling she seems to find what she's looking for.

“Does he look like this?” she tilts the screen so Lance can get a better look. He sucks in a breath.

The child in the photo—who looks like he can't be much older than seven or so—is so young looking it's only barely recognizable as Shiro, with longer, shaggier hair that cut off past his ears and a missing front tooth. But the eyes and smile are unmistakable, and the Facebook tag confirms this.

That isn't what draws Lance's attention the most though. It's the person next to Shiro.

Being a ghost had obviously taken some of the life out of Keith—in the literal sense, and the less literal. His skin was less pale here, his eyes a little bit more shiny, and Lance didn't think he had ever seen Keith smile quite that brightly until now. It's obvious, even looking at this scanned-in weathered Polaroid, and Lance is surprised he never noticed _just_ how pale Keith was.

It's a cute photo: his hair is pulled back into a short ponytail and his arms are wrapped around Shiro, who's obviously caught in the middle of laughing. They both look really... Happy, like the picture was taken at just the perfect candid moment.

Suddenly it strikes Lance that he probably shouldn't be ogling a picture of a man that's been dead for twenty years like he _totally_ is. He tears his eyes away from the phone, directing his gaze toward the tiled floor of the breakroom.

“That's him.” he pauses, avoiding Allura's inquisitive gaze at his reaction. “Um, could you uh, send me that picture?”

Her eyes narrow. “Why are you so red?”

“I'm sick. Fever. … What?”

She looks like she doesn't buy it at all, but downloads the photo and sends it to him through text anyway.

“... Do you think Shiro would want to meet him?” Lance asks. “Keith doesn't remember anything right now, but we thought maybe seeing him would help... Or something.”

“Hmm.” Allura hums, tapping her nails against the table. “I'm sure he would, but I'm not sure how to bring something like that up to him.”

“Maybe you shouldn't? I mean, uh, surprise him!”

Allura sends him a look that clearly says ' _that's the worst idea I've ever heard_.' Lance sighs.

“Listen, I've been dealing with this for years. No one ever believes you until they see it for themselves. Not that I'm, uh, telling you how to handle Shiro—I'm sure you know him better than I do--”

She holds up a hand for him to stop talking, with a slight wave. “No, you might have a point. I just don't want to completely blindside him or anything... Hm. I'll figure out something to lead him into it, okay?”

Lance nods.

“Good. I'll let you know what happens then. Now, can you please get out before I have to spray down the entire store with disinfectant more than I already need to?”

 

* * *

 

> **Lance** : [ShiroAndKeith.jpg]
> 
> **Lance** : got this from allura
> 
> **Lance** : just in case u guys wondered what keith looked like
> 
> **Hunk** : Is that little Shiro????? AWW
> 
> **Hunk** : Have you shown Keith this?

 

Considering Lance hadn't even gone back home yet, that was a negative.

He _might_ have spent three hours on this bench outside his apartment complex, actually. But only because Starbucks kicked him out after about an hour and a half of sniffling. _Whatever_ , at least he was polite enough to not continuously blow his nose on their napkins and fill up their trash cans.

 

> **Lance** : ….not yet
> 
> **Pidge** : keith says he hasn't been home all day
> 
> **Pidge** : lance go show him
> 
> **Pidge** : why are you even out??? aren't you SUPER sick
> 
> **Lance** : WOW TALKING TO KEITH INSTEAD OF ME ALL DAY
> 
> **Lance** : I see how it is.............. #replaced
> 
> **Pidge** : stop redirecting the conversation lol

 

Damn. Caught again.

 _Rough_ , _rough_ _life_.

 

> **Lance** : ive been running errands
> 
> **Lance** : ill show him when I get back. Im not just gonna send him something like that out of nowhere
> 
> **Lance** : i can be considerate sometimes
> 
> **Hunk** : bro did you buy air freshener?
> 
> **Lance** : NO, i was doing REAL things
> 
> **Pidge** : like sitting on a bench
> 
> **Lance** : ….
> 
> **Lance** : pidge. Are you psychic?
> 
> **Pidge** : no. I was on the bus earlier and we drove by you
> 
> **Pidge** : are you still there...
> 
> **Lance** : … I dont deserve this
> 
> **Hunk** : …
> 
> **Pidge** : …
> 
> **Lance** : ANYWAY I was out getting air (no freshener) and lost track of time. My phone is dying tho so im gonna head inside now bye

He shoves his phone in his pocket, ignoring the vibrating indicating that they were still sending him messages. That last part wasn't a _complete_ lie. His phone really was dying, because he hadn't had the foresight enough to bring along his charger.

… Well, he had to go back home at some point eventually anyway, and it wasn't like he could sneak in when Keith was asleep or something. Sighing, he trudges back into the complex and shuffles up the stairs.

Keith raises an eyebrow when he walks in, but doesn't look up from the magazine he's flipping through on the couch. “I was beginning to wonder if you had passed out somewhere in a gutter and were ever coming back.”

“What, _missed_ me?”

Oops. There it was.

Keith snorts. “Well, you're the only person who can see me...”

“Not the only one you can talk to, now,” Lance grumbles as he pulls out a Coke from his mini-fridge. Keith shrugs.

“Just to make sure you weren't dead. I thought maybe they had seen you.”

 _'Pidge did'_ , Lance thinks, but keeps that to himself. He reaches down to plug in his phone, and frowns at it. Oh, right.

So, how to bring that up.

“Have you figured out anything else about your past?” Lance tries, just to get the ball rolling. Keith frowns, gives a short shake of his head.

“Nothing besides a vague feeling that Shirogane's my last name.” he shrugs. “It's... A weird feeling.”

“... You haven't tried Googling yourself, right?”

Keith sends him a look that's somewhere between completely baffled and semi-offended. “Tried doing _what_?”

“Googling?” Lance replies, like it's the most obvious thing in the world except oh shit, _right_ , died in the 80s. “I mean, uh, like, searching yourself on the internet.”

“Oh.” Suddenly, Keith has a perfect poker-face. Lance gives him a disturbed look.

“What?”

“Nothing. No. I didn't know you could do that.”

“What were you thinking it was?”

“Nothing!”

Lance lets out a puff of air through his lips. “ _Oooo_ kay, well, whatever. Good. I have something to show you.”

“... Related to Googling?”

“ _Why do you keep saying it like that_? No! Related to your last name! Sort of!” rolling his eyes, Lance opens up his photo gallery on his phone. “Look at this.”

He hands his phone over to Keith, who brushes Lance's hand as he takes it from him. Lance tries not to shiver.

Keith is silent as he takes in the picture, eyes moving over every bit of the screen. His face is perfectly impassive, and Lance wishes more than _anything_ he could read some sort of emotion. But if Keith is feeling something, _anything_ , he's masking it well.

It's utterly silent, aside from the noisy air conditioning. Keith finally places the phone, face down, and scoots it toward Lance.

He just looks... Confused.

“Anything at all?” Lance asks, quietly. Keith blinks.

“Maybe. I don't know.” his fingers are splayed out across the couch, as he furls and unfurls his fist against the fabric. “... My... Brother?”

His voice is uncertain. Lance nods, completely wordless for once. There was a time and place for sarcasm, and humor, and Lance's astoundingly profound comments—now wasn't one of them.

Keith looks like he's having an internal battle with himself. He runs his hands through his hair, lips turned so far downward that it reminds Lance of the very opposite—the bright smile in the picture.

“... Takashi?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SHORT CHAPTER?? no not really!! i decided to split this chapter into two parts; i'm splitting it up like this because the second part is from keith's pov!! whoa. i'll post the next part tomorrow. (so yeah technically it is two seperate chapters but... let me.... say what i want to...)
> 
> side note: i must have jinxed myself by writing about sick lance, because now i'm sick. this is the worst. im pretty high on cold medicine so i hope that 1. this makes sense and 2. there are no outstanding errors or anything in this chapter(s) lol.


	7. The Polaroid of Keith Shirogane (PART II. Keith)

Being Keith was rough, sometimes. Really rough.

Being _dead_ was rough, specifically. Being unable to be seen, by anyone, with the exception of Lance, was rough.

But...

Maybe not all _that_ rough.

In a way, Keith supposes he's kind of lucky, actually. Lucky that Lance is the way he is—sort of obnoxious sometimes, maybe, but also friendly. Willing to help him out, despite the fact that he was essentially a total stranger that was stuck in his apartment, and Keith didn't even pay rent to him. Lucky that Pidge and Hunk are there for support, and he thinks that _Lance_ is pretty damn lucky himself to have someone like Allura as his boss.

When Lance finally wakes up in the morning, after what Keith can only conclude is the worst night of sleep in the guy's life, he really doesn't look much better than he had the night before. As a matter of fact, Keith thought he looked a little bit like he had just had something _really_ sour to eat. His face is all twisted up, which combined with the way the sun is hitting him and the drool that's around his mouth and on the pillow, makes it seem like God himself is trying to highlight the very worst of Lance Sanchez.

(Not that Keith really thought there was that much _terrible_ about Lance. Probably, this was his own bias, which he was totally... _Mostly_ willing to fess up to. Keith may not know anything about his past, but it took him less than a few days to figure out where his own preferences lied. Maybe, once upon a time, that was a big deal to Keith—but as it stands, being a ghost and all, he couldn't really find it in himself to care that much.

It wasn't like anything could happen, anyway.)

Keith watches him for a few minutes, wondering if maybe he was going to go back to sleep, thinking about the night before. Lance's hand, grabbing his wrist, holding him in place. Brushing his sweaty hair out of his eyes, Lance being so totally unguarded.

“Don't leave”, he had said, but he was probably delirious.

(Keith tries not to think too much into it.)

What he _doesn't_ expect, is for Lance to get up, get dressed, and completely avoid any eye-contact with Keith at all.

“Are you going out?” he asks, because _seriously_ , this guy probably should still be in a hospital right now if he had gotten taken to the ER last night. Lance—still not meeting his gaze, _at all_ —nods.

“I have work.” he responds, slipping on his shoes by the door. Keith just stares. There was no way he was serious. Right?

_Yeah_ , right. This was Lance they were talking about. He had a feeling he wasn't going to be able to stop him from doing anything.

“Do you think Allura is going to let you work?” the doubt is seeping through Keith voice, and Lance doesn't even dignify his question with a response. He just shrugs his shoulders and heads out the door, and _seriously_ what is even Lance's problem.

It's rough, being Keith. Lucky, but sometimes rough.

He does what he always does when Lance leaves, which is look through his phone and skim through magazines. It's surprising, just how much you can learn from _Rolling Stone_.

… God, his life is boring. He wonders what he did before he died. Probably not sitting around in some guy's house, reading _Rolling Stone_ magazines. Keith wonders what's even outside, past the street that he can see from the living room window.

If ghosts can go stir-crazy, he thinks he's slowly getting there.

Honestly, Keith doesn't expect Lance to be gone that long. He's almost sure Allura's going to send him back home—unless she's some kind of sadist, because Lance seriously looked like he was just as sick as the day before, if not just a little bit more hydrated and less likely to die—but one hour turns into two, which turns into three, four, and then finally Keith pulls out his phone and decides to text Pidge.

 

> [ **12:45PM** ]: It's Keith. Is Lance with you
> 
> [ **12:46PM** ]: No. should he be?
> 
> [ **12:50PM** ]: I dont know. he's got a cold and he went into work a couple hours ago but I didnt think they would let him stay
> 
> [ **12:50PM** ]: Lance is sick and he went outside??? to WORK???? whaaaaaat. He's normally such a baby when hes sick.

 

Keith frowns. How did they always manage to text back so fast? Christ.

 

> [ **12:54PM** ]: Okay. He wasn't looking at me this morning so maybe hes mad at me and avoiding me
> 
> [ **12:55PM** ]: wait really?
> 
> [ **01:00PM** ]: Yes.
> 
> [ **01:00PM** ]: oohh.... uh sorry
> 
> [ **01:03PM** ]: ?
> 
>  

He never does get a response back.

Lance comes back a couple hours later, which Keith spends most of his time flipping through magazines.

(And maybe counting the splotches on the ceiling, but he wasn't really about to readily admit _that_. Maybe he should figure out how to use that Netflix thing that Lance is always raving about.)

“I was beginning to wonder if you had passed out somewhere in a gutter and were ever coming back.” he grins slightly as he says it, but hides it behind the magazine. Lance arches an eyebrow at him, in that one way that he _always_ does.

… Keith kind of likes it, as stupid as it looks sometimes.

“What, _missed_ me?”

_Honestly_? Yeah. But what Lance didn't know couldn't inflate his already too-big ego. So Keith covers it up with a snort. “Well, you're the only person who can see me, so...”

Lance always gets this sort of guilty look on his face whenever he's reminded that he's only visible to Lance. Keith doesn't really get _why_ ; it's not his fault that it's like that.

They banter back and forth, just like they always do, and Keith realizes that he's really beginning to feel like this is home. Like this is... Where he belongs. An unnatural being in his most natural habitat.

He wonders if he'll be here forever. Lance... Probably won't.

There's a comfortable silence as Lance plugs his phone and and settles down, and Keith thinks about the fact that with anyone else, for as short of a time as they've known each other, it probably wouldn't be this comfortable.

That's just another thing to mark down as lucky, he guesses.

“Have you figured out anything about your past?” Lance suddenly asks, bringing Keith out of his thoughts. He shakes his head.

“Nothing besides a vague feeling that Shirogane is my last name.” Or at the very least, that it's extremely familiar. It's like something is there— _almost_ there, just barely out of his reach. It's on the tip of his tongue, so close he can taste it. _So_ frustrating to dwell on. “It's... A weird feeling.”

Lance is looking increasingly uncomfortable, but at least it's a step up from earlier today, when he wouldn't even look him in the eye. Well, whatever.

“You haven't tried Googling yourself, right?”

Oh god. Was that some kind of innuendo?

“Tried doing _what_?”

“Uh, Googling?” Lance is looking at him like he's stupid, before a realization seems to dawn over him—and then he looks like the one who feels stupid. “I mean, uh, like, searching yourself on the internet.”

“Oh.” Nobody really bothered to explain the internet to him, so no, he hadn't. … If that was really what Googling meant. Keith wasn't quite convinced. Lance's reaction wasn't helping.

Keith stares at him, trying to figure out if he's being genuine or messing with him again.

“What?”

“Nothing. No. I didn't know you could do that.”

Lance's face is starting to turn red. Keith doesn't know how to take that. “What were you thinking it was?”

“Nothing!” Keith replies, probably a little too quickly. Lance gives him a weirded-out look, obviously unconvinced.

“ _Oooo_ kay, well, whatever.” now he's eyeing him like he's some sort of pervert. _Awesome_. “Good. I have something to show you.”

“... Related to Googling?” oh, Keith. Open mouth, insert foot.

“ _Why do you keep saying it like that_? No! Related to your last name! Sort of!” Keith thinks that probably, one of these days Lance is going to roll his eyes so hard they're going to get stuck in the back of his head. Leaning over, Lance attempts to let him get a better view of his phone screen. “Look at this.”

His fingers brush against Lance's palm as he takes the phone out of his hands. He's warm like he usually is, but maybe that's just because Keith always feels so cold. He tries not to read into the way Lance shudders beside him.

The first thing his eyes land on, in the photo on the screen, is himself. It's absolutely unmistakable—it can't have been that long before he died that it was taken, even. The only difference is his hair is pulled back.

The second thing is the other person in the photograph: the child. There's... Something about him, that's more than just familiar. It's like the vague nagging feeling he gets when he thinks about his last name, only stronger, louder, more obnoxious: You know this, you _know_ this— _why_ can't you think of this when you clearly _know_ this?

It's right there, right _there_. Literally in front of him. A picture of himself, a piece to his past and all he can do is stare at it like it's written out in plain script but he can't read the language. His chest kind of hurts, the more he stares at that toothless grin on the child, the more that he--

He sets the phone down, ignoring the stare Lance is giving him.

It's too much, somehow, and maybe looking away for a minute will jog something. Anything. That's the entire point of all of this, right?

“Anything at all?” Lance's voice has a softness to it that Keith didn't know Lance was capable of having. He drums his fingers on the couch, clenching and unclenching his fist occasionally.

“Maybe. I don't know.” but he _does_. It feels like it's going to be so obvious, as soon as it just pops back into his head, “... My.... Brother?”

It's half lucky guess used from context, and half his gut telling him. But when he sees Lance nod, it's like something unlocks within him and suddenly, that's just one more thing that makes sense. The _first_ thing to make sense, really.

“Takashi?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> had a conversation with my boyfriend today. it went like this:  
> "babe if i die you have to update my fanfiction and give an ending"  
> "ok. how about "ghost boy comes back to life. makes out with other boy. they have sex""  
> "sounds good"
> 
>  
> 
> i had debated whether or not to give Keith's side of things a go... even just for one short chapter like this, and im GLAD i did because it's nice to get out of lance's voice but lance's voice is so familiar to me that writing keith was surprisingly challenging? lmao I SHOULD PROBAAABLY just stick to lance huh. alright, back to our regularly scheduled plot and not just info we already know about rehashed in a different pov.


	8. The Emotional Bonds of Lance Sanchez

Lance is grounded.

Specifically to his home, but _technically_ to the couch, because as it turns out traveling all around the city while sick does nothing to help your body heal itself. Allura's orders, according to the fifteen text messages he received in a row.

“Told you you shouldn't have gone.” Keith says, presumably just to rub it in Lance's face. Lance would flip him off, if he wasn't so comfy under the covers he had. He snuggles down further and sighs.

Keith hadn't said anything much about Shiro since remembering his name, but Lance got the feeling that it was coming back to him... If maybe very slowly. Allura was equally as silent about getting Shiro to come over, but it _had_ only been a day.

Besides, he was probably in no condition to be seeing Shiro.

“I'm _bored_ ,” Lance complains, because being sick is absolute garbage. The only thing he _could_ do was sneeze and sniffle and complain. Keith rolls his eyes.

“Welcome to my life.” he replies, and Lance scowls. He shifts up to a sitting position, and pats the seat next to him.

“So come watch a movie with me.” he suggests.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Not a movie person.” Keith says. Lance thinks that's full of crap. He tongues the inside of his cheek.

“Not even _Star Wars_?”

Keith looks at him. It's a tense moment, as his eyes scan over Lance.

“... Okay.”

Ha! Score one for Lance. _Old people_. Star Wars gets 'em every time.

Lance slides off the couch and burrito rolls over to his pile of DVDs next to the PS4 (“Why do you keep doing that?” Keith asks. Lance ignores him. _Let him wonder_.) struggling to open the case with his hands underneath the blanket. Keith watches, mildly impressed, as he manages to slip it into the machine and put the case back. All while securely bound by the covers.

He rolls his way back to the couch and flops back down onto it, tipping his head to the side to signal for Keith to follow. With a roll of his eyes, he does.

Lance must be a bit more tired than he realizes, because he falls asleep after the first few minutes. It's not really a _real_ sleep, though—more like those weird half ones you have when you're somewhere in between unconscious and awake, where you can have fuzzy visions of Star Wars light saber noises as you doze.

He _is_ , however, still out enough to not realize when he moves his head onto Keith's shoulder, and then further, shifting into Keith's lap.

It's almost more comfortable than sleeping with a pillow. Keith doesn't have any sharp, uncomfy spots, and the cool chill that he always seems to give off feels nice to Lance's heated face.

He isn't sure how long he's out, but when his eyes finally open again the movie is more than halfway over. Keith, feeling him shift around, looks down at him.

“You missed the entire movie. Hope it was worth it.” he says, with a frown. There's no real mirth to it, but honestly, in his foggy-minded state Lance isn't exactly focused on his words.

This can't possibly be the most flattering angle, for _anyone_ , looking up at someone from beneath their chin--but all Lance can see is Keith's too-pale lips and _huh, wonder what they would feel like? Cold_?

He freezes his own thoughts before they can go any further. This is _exactly_ why Lance left all day yesterday. He just couldn't be trusted not to think weird things around someone he had a crush on, ghost or not, because he may or may not be a little bit deprived.

He likes to think of it as _romantically inclined_.

Lance leans back up, realizing he's been staring at Keith's lips for an inordinate amount of time now. There's no way Keith hasn't noticed, but he isn't saying anything (as a matter of fact he's a little _too_ still) and... God. He can't tear his eyes away now, because then they might meet Keith's, which would be awkward, but _this_ is awkward, and--

And maybe Lance should just stop thinking so much.

_Fuck it_. He's tired of this.

He places a hand on Keith's cheek and goes in for it, lips so close they were practically touching. But something stops him, just before, and Lance realizes that Keith is completely frozen up.

This isn't... Quite right. But Lance can't bring himself to pull back, and he's caught between apologizing and just asking if he can, the words hung in his throat. Neither of them move, Lance's breath fanning out across Keith's lips.

This has got to be the worst almost-first kiss in all of romantic-fuck-up history.

Just when Lance finally gets his brains back and moves to pull away, to completely back out of this with whatever small amount of dignity he had left, Keith finally responds. Like something clicks within him, he moves forward before Lance can move away and presses their lips together.

And suddenly, it's very, very not awkward anymore. He gets his answer, to his original question—Keith's lips are as cold as the rest of him—plus a little bit more. Keith pushes him forward, gently, and Lance wonders just how long he's wanted to do this. They break apart, for an instant, and Lance notes just how much more lifelike Keith looks. Probably because of the flush across his face, but it's... Interesting.

Lance doesn't get much more time to ponder this, because just as he starts to shift back to his side of the couch, Keith moves forward to close the gap between them again. He's all fire, more confident this time, and if Lance's brain hadn't suddenly short-circuited when his mouth met Keith's again, he might have wondered about why his lips were suddenly warmer, or maybe laughed about how randomly aggressive this guy who _didn't even move an inch_ the first time he was almost-kissed was.

Keith presses Lance back into the other side of the love-seat, and despite all the warning bells in his head—Lance complies. He _had_ started it, after all.

The blanket is still wrapped around him in a too-constricting way, but Lance's hands must have freed themselves at some point because he runs them through Keith's dark hair as their kiss deepens. Oh dear _God_ it felt amazing to be kissing someone again. Keith probably couldn't even _remember_ the last time he had kissed, Lance realizes--but there must have been some kind of muscle memory at work there, because this was _not_ the kiss of someone who hadn't ever made out before. He moves lips against lips like he's a professional, it shouldn't even be legal.

Lance swipes his tongue against Keith's bottom lips to try and surprise him, get some kind of control back, and... No, that wasn't his imagination. His lips definitely weren't as cool as they were before. The thought is pushed to the back of Lance's mind again as Keith parts his lips, just a little, and--

The front door opens.

“Hey, bro! I just thought I'd bring sooomee...”

Hunk is standing in the doorway, something in Tupperware tucked under his arm as his sentence dies in his throat. He looks from Lance, to _Keith_ , and back to Lance before promptly backing out and slamming the door shut.

They pull apart as soon as they hear the door open, but by the time Keith has attempted to scramble back to his side of the couch it's too late. Lance stays put, staring at the closed door upside-down with an open mouth.

“Oh my God, he's going to tell Pidge.” Lance says, but is interrupted by Keith talking over top of him.

“He _saw_ me?”

They both stare at each other for a moment that feels like an hour.

“.... Yeah.” Lance finally replies, replaying the scene in his head. It kind of makes him want to die, but there's no doubt about it—Hunk looked directly at Keith.

Lance is on his feet before he has any more time to think about it. He had spent so much time laying down on the couch today that the world sways a little bit from the sudden movement, but Lance is already out the door. He's sprinting down the hallway—Lucky enough to catch Hunk just before he gets on the elevator. He waves his arms around and calls out, ignoring the fact that he's probably disturbing all the elderly people in the nearby apartments.

Well, whatever. They can just take out their hearing aids. This was important.

“Hunk!” he yells, slowing down as hits a few feet before his friend. “Hunk, we have to—talk.” he pants.

Hunk vigorously shakes his head. “Uh, no, whatever you do— _whoever_ you do in your own time, that's your business--”

“Hunk, that was Keith. You saw him? You saw Keith?”

Hunk pauses, ignoring the _ding_ of the elevator, signaling it's arrival. “... Keith? Keith is a ghost. An _invisible_ ghost.”

“I _know_.” Lance says, slightly annoyed that Hunk is telling him this like it's news to him. “And I thought I was the only one who could see him but—You saw him?” he's still a little out of breath, and Hunk lets him lean on him for support.

“Jeez, man... And yeah, I, yeah. He was right there on top of—Eugh, I didn't want to relive that scene. Wait.” Hunk stares at him. “Wait. You were making out with Keith? Keith the ghost!?”

“ _Shh_!” Lance says, suddenly feeling very concerned for the poor old people in the apartments around here. “I wasn't—I mean, yeah I was but... Listen, I need you to come back so we can confirm if you can see him.”

Lance is given a thoroughly skeptical look by Hunk. “Are you going to start making out with him again?”

“No!” Lance snaps. “Stop talking about it and get back in my apartment!”

Hunk arches a brow, but follows Lance as he stomps toward the apartment. He opens the door and wheezes, moving to steady himself on the couch. Hunk frowns.

“You probably shouldn't have come running after me,” he says, looking concerned. Lance rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, and I also _probably_ should have locked the door. This world is just full of should-haves, Hunk. Gimme a break.” he takes a moment to cough into the corner of his arm, before pointing at Keith, who's standing near the couch. He still looks flushed. “There. Can you see him?”

Hunk squints, frown deepening. “See... Keith?”

“Yeah. Right there.” Lance gestures toward him. Hunk stares a little harder.

“Dude. I don't see anything.”

Lance gives out a very irritated sigh. How could he see him, and then suddenly just _not_ see him? He moves over and grabs Keith's shoulder. “Right! Here!”

Suddenly, Hunk's eyes look like they're going to bug right out of his head. He gapes in Keith's direction.

“A-A ghost!”

Lance blinks. “ _That's_ what you have to say about all of this? _Hunk_.” he throws his hands up in exasperation, and Hunk looks confused.

“... He's gone.”

“What?” Lance gives a glance to Keith, who shrugs. Carefully, Lance touches his shoulder again.

“Oh, holy swiss cheese and crackers. He's there again.”

Lance lifts his hand.

“... And, gone.”

Lance touches Keith's face this time. Keith gives him a dirty look.

“He's back again.”

Lance lets go of Keith's face and crosses his arms in front of him. “I... Think we should call Pidge.”

 

* * *

 

“Whoa.”

And that's all they really have to say, about Keith's amazing disappearance act. Lance scowls after the demonstration, taking his hands off of Keith.

“What, that's it? I just showed you a _miracle_!” he huffs. Pidge shrugs.

“What am I supposed to say? It's not like I can research why this is happening—as it turns out, most websites that are about ghosts _aren't_ the most trustworthy.” they roll their eyes, before pausing. “... You know what though?”

Oh, no. _Please_ , Lance thinks, _Please don't ask how_ \--

“Why did this happen? You could touch him before and nothing went on, right?”

“I don't know!” Lance throws his hands into the air, as if this helps prove his utter confusion. “It just... It just did.”

Keith eyes him from beside, but doesn't make a move to speak up. Hunk looks uncomfortably around the room.

“... Well--”

“Hunk, _don't_ \--”

“They were making out when I saw first saw him.”

Lance covers his hands with his face. “You're officially off the bro-list.”

Pidge's eyebrows shoot up so far up they practically disappear behind their bangs. “Making out?”

“No, I was... Looking for... Uh, he dropped some ketchup.”

Keith groans.

“On his mouth.” Pidge replies, looking as unimpressed as they sound. Lance nods. “Do ghosts even eat?”

Before Lance can reply with an ' _of course_ ', Keith snags his wrist. “I don't.” he clarifies, being visible now. They all three turn to stare at him. Lance takes his hand back, sneering.

“Okay, you know what? I'm _offended_. Can't a bi guy kiss another guy in the year of 2016 without all this judgment?” he shakes his head, tutting. “You're both getting demoted. If this was Myspace, you'd both be off my top eight.”

Pidge scoffs. “So you can have two more blank spots? Your Myspace would be so cluttered I wouldn't want to be on it anyway. I bet you'd have Avril Lavigne autoplay.”

“She's a pop-punk legend!” Lance scowls. “Whatever! Not the point. The point is yeah. It happened. After that. But it could be related to his memories or something, too. You remembered more after looking at the picture, right?”

Keith shrugs. “Sort of.”

“Okay, well, I'm taking that noncommittal answer as a yes.” he turns back toward Pidge and Hunk. “So it might have been a coincidence.”

“ _Or_ ,” Pidge starts, and Lance already doesn't like where this is going. “It could have to do with an emotional connection. Aren't spirits supposed to be sensitive to that sort of thing?”

“Like how they're drawn to to children,” Hunk pipes in, and Lance angry-pouts because _emotions_ equated to _feelings_ equated to _I so don't feel like talking about my feelings to the both of them right now with Keith standing right there._

Keith puts his hand on Lance's shoulder, almost making him jump. He looks thoughtful. “So how close I am to someone can determine if I'm visible to others?”

Well, at least that sounded innocent enough. Pidge puts a hand to their chin.

“I don't know. It might be more than that... Like, the fact that we can hear you too. Maybe you're more... generally solid.”

Lance thinks about the way his lips felt earlier. _Warm_. Actually, Keith felt less... feather-light, than before, every time he touched him.

Pidge coughs, snapping Lance out of his train of thought. “Wow, Lance. Thinking of something?”

“No. Yes. Why do you do this?”

“It's fun.” they shrug. “Also, we warned you, so whatever...”

“Warned?” Keith questions. Lance pointedly ignores him, which works out well in his favor when Pidge gets their iconic _I have an idea_ face.

“Let's all take a selfie! And we can see if Keith shows up in it.”

Lance wants to argue—' _what's that going to prove_?'--but he's not one for turning down a picture, and Pidge is already holding up their phone. Hunk moves in behind them, to get in frame, and Lance brushes his hand against Keith's. He tries to ignore the urge to properly grab his hand, and intertwine their fingers together.

Once they're all properly settled and looking at the camera, Pidge snaps the picture—and then two more, just for safety. They grin as they flip through their camera roll.

“He's there! That's crazy.” they flip their phone around to show it off, and Lance doesn't miss the small smile that lights up Keith's face.

“You should send that to Allura,” Lance suggests, and Pidge nods. But Hunk shakes his head.

“Probably don't? Imagine if Shiro looked over and saw that, or something.”

Oh. Lance didn't even think about that.

“... Good point.” Pidge says, locking their phone and dropping it back into their pocket. “I'll wait until Shiro knows, then. Speaking of, when is Allura going to tell him?”

Lance shrugs. “I don't know. It's not an easy thing to bring up. I told her to take her time.”

As the three of them chat, they all forget one very important detail: Keith is right there. He frowns as he listens, grabbing Lance again to ask the trio a pointed question:

“Who's Shiro?” he pauses, as they all send each other uncomfortable frowns. “Are you talking about Takashi?”

They stare at him, silently for a moment, as his confusion turns into a glare. “Answer me.”

“Uh, erm, I wasn't trying to hide it from you I just... Didn't know how to bring it up?”

“You know my brother, and you didn't know _how to bring it up_?” his anger is less directed at Pidge and Hunk, and moreso at Lance, but they shrink away regardless. “Is that how you got that picture?”

“Let me explain! And jeez, loosen your grip!” Lance snaps, wriggling his arm from Keith's grasp. He lets go, like he wasn't aware that he was holding on that tightly. “Allura is... Shiro's fiancee. But Shiro was our professor, back when I was in college.”

“He's getting married?” Keith frowns, looks down at the ground in confusion, like he can't quite figure something out. “But he was like... Like seven?”

“Well, he's like thirty-seven now.” Lance says. “It's 2016, dude.”

“... I know.” he looks toward Pidge and Hunk, who are watching Lance carry on a one-sided conversation since Keith let go. “They knew too?”

“We didn't want to send your ghost brain into like, a fit or something. And we needed to make sure. That picture was the final piece.”

Keith chews his bottom lip.

... I still don't remember him very well.” he says, after a pressing silence. “Maybe it would be better if I didn't meet him.”

“What?” Lance shakes his head, steps closer toward Keith. “But you're so close. I can tell! If meeting him is that final step--”

“To what?” Keith asks, quietly, and then louder, “Have you maybe thought that Shiro doesn't want to meet me? That _maybe_ he's put his dead brother of thirty years to rest?”

“You died in a fire, Keith,” Lance says. His voice is level, but he's scowling. “I'm sure that Shiro has things he wanted to tell you that he never got to--

“--And maybe he told them to my grave?” he looks at Keith, and despite knowing they can't see him, looks toward Pidge and Hunk too. “Did you even consider that? Whatever,”

Crossing his arms, Keith turns on his heel and walks toward the bathroom, before closing it behind him.

Pidge and Hunk stare blankly at the door.

“... What just happened?” Pidge asks, the first brave enough to speak up. Lance shakes his head.

“It's just... A lot of information. He'll probably come around.” he _hopes_ , anyway. Suddenly, Lance is remembering why he never liked messing around with ghosts in the first place.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he whips it out, thinking that maybe it's Keith. But instead, the text is from Allura:

 

> [ **5:05PM** ]: We're all a go! Shiro has tomorrow evening off, does that work?
> 
>  

Lance looks up at Hunk and Pidge, who are looking back at him curiously.

“... I guess we're finding out. Shiro's coming over tomorrow night.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: in the original outline, this fic was supposed to end at 7 chapters. i have somehow managed to still follow my plot outline chapter for chapter while putting in WAY more details than originally planned so i am not sure what kind of crazyness i thought i'd be able to wrap up in 7 chapters but... wow.
> 
> sorry to leave you guys on another cliffhanger lmao. i'll stop doing that.


	9. The Beginning of the End for Lance Sanchez

When Keith doesn’t come out of the bathroom after thirty minutes, despite Lance literally standing at the door and practically begging him, Pidge and Hunk decide to beat it.

“I think you two should talk,” Pidge says, and Hunk gives a firm nod behind them. Lance _wants_ to argue--that he really doesn’t want to be left alone with Keith right now, who had locked himself in _his_ bathroom--but he couldn’t really disagree with them.

“Okay,” he says instead, lamely. Hunk leaves the Tupperware in the kitchen, after explaining that it was soup to help him feel better. Lance feels a little better just thinking about. Hunk’s cooking is _insanely_ good.

They leave, and Lance sits with his back to the bathroom, head resting against the door.

(He’s pretty sure he’s seen a movie with a scene just like this in it before, and things always turn out good in movies so hopefully this will work.)

“Keith,” he starts, and then realizes he doesn’t have anything to say. … Well, not anything that he _wants_ to say. “I’m... Sorry.”

No response.

“We were just trying to help, you know, it’s not like we were maliciously keeping it from you…”

Still no answer.

“And I’m kind of--I’m shit with like, talking about stuff, okay, and no excuses. This is totally on me. I didn’t know how to bring it up.”

Finally, there’s a sigh from the other end of the door. Lance immediately perks up. “So you are listening!”

“Pretty impossible not to be when you’re constantly talking.” comes Keith’s voice. Lance shrugs, despite the fact that Keith can’t see him.

“Hey, I can talk about _nothing_ for hours. Important stuff is just… Harder.”

Keith goes quiet again, and Lance frowns. Fine. Time to pull out the big guns.

“Allura just texted me.” a pause. No reaction. That would change. “Shiro is coming over tomorrow.”

There’s the distinct sound of something falling to the ground from inside the bathroom. Lance cringes. Maybe he should have thought that one over a little bit more--but hey, at least it got a reaction. He nearly falls backward when the door suddenly opens without warning.

Keith is glaring down at him, and _man_ , if looks could kill Lance would hold the guinness world record for most deaths, because he’d be dead about six hundred times over.

“ _What_?”

“It’s happening, man. Can’t stop the Allura train. When she gets an idea she is _set_.” Lance hops back up to his feet to face Keith. “Sorry dude, but if I cancelled on her she would probably kill me.”

Keith runs his hands through his hair, a frustrated movement. “I’m-- No. No way.”

“No way _what_?”

“No way am I ready for this!” Keith shakes his head. “I don’t even--Do you think at all about things? I don’t know what he looks like, or what he does, or who he even is now it’s been so long--”

“Whoa, hey, slow down.” Lance reaches out to touch him, a sign of comfort, but Keith ducks out of the way.

“No!” he shouts, and Lance is _very_ glad that the neighbors can’t hear him. “You didn’t take into consideration at all how I even _feel_ about this!”

Keith goes to slam the door again, fingers gripping the handle so tightly they’re going white. But Lance jams his foot into the doorway at the last second, and…

_Ow_.

The door springs open as it makes contact with the side of his foot, slamming against it before bouncing back. Keith freezes.

“...Ah.” Lance says, surprisingly composed, as a million expletives run through his mind. His eyes start watering with the effort of not screaming out like a three-year-old who just tripped and landed on their face.

Keith gapes.

“Are… Are you okay?” he asks, looking like he’s not sure whether he’s still supposed to be angry, or if he should just be concerned. Lance shifts all of his weight off the foot, not daring to move it yet, and leans onto the doorway for support.

“Peachy.” he adds an eyebrow waggle as an added bonus. Since, you know, he was leaning on the door frame like a cool teen in an 80s movie, might as well go all the way with the act. He even gives him a wink, just to put the icing on the cake.

Keith looks so confused, Lance doubts he even has any room for the previous anger in his emotions tank. “Are you _hitting_ on me?”

“You tell me.” he tries to give a suave smirk.

“You’re crying.” this was true. Lance could feel the tears of pain leaking out.

“Yeah. Some people are into that.” Lance pauses when Keith doesn’t answer. He looks like he might find a different room to go lock himself in, so Lance speaks again:

“... I’m not sure why I’m like this. I think it’s my default state. Fake confidence, or something, Pidge psychoanalyzed me and could tell you.” another pause. “I’m honestly in a lot of pain right now.”

Sighing, Keith grudgingly helps Lance limp back to the couch.

 

* * *

 

A few minutes and some pain pills later, Lance is laying on the couch with his foot raised. There was the beginnings of an _enormous_ bruise, but no signs of swelling--yet--so Lance hoped that maybe, just maybe he didn’t crack the bone… Or worse. Maybe all it was, was just a really bad bruise.

“... Sorry.” Keith says, wincing as he looks at Lance’s foot. Lance shrugs.

“Hey, you didn’t mean to. I mean, you still probably shouldn’t have tried to slam the door--I know that’s a ghost thing, or whatever, but it really loses it’s effect when I can see you. Just, for the record. But anyway. I probably shouldn’t have stuck my foot there either.”

Keith nods. “Yeah. That was pretty stupid.”

“Okay _teenage angst_ , I wasn’t the one trying to lock myself in the bathroom.” he huffs. It’s only okay to pick on Lance when _Lance_ is picking on Lance. No other time. Keith levels a glare at him, but he ignores it. “So do you wanna like.. Talk?”

Keith chews on his bottom lip, looking away from Lance for a moment. “... I guess. About Takashi--”

“I’ll text Allura and tell her tomorrow doesn’t work.” Lance cuts him off. “I shouldn’t have just sprung it on you like that. Totally uncool.”

Keith looks a little surprised. “... Really?”

“Yeah, man.” he wiggles up on the couch a little more, propping himself up on his elbows. “I mean, I know how to apologize. Don’t look so shocked. Even _drop-dead_ handsome people like myself make mistakes.”

Keith’s face falls back flat after that. Drop-dead indeed. He decides to ignore the last part of that little speech. “No… I mean. You’re right. And it’s going to happen sooner or later, so let’s do it.”

“Are you sure, man?” tipping his head slightly, Lance frowns. Ideally, yeah, sooner was better than later, but…

Something in Lance was nervous. Maybe just as nervous as Keith. He didn’t really know why. “It’s not that big of a deal--Allura will get over it, if she’s even mad, I kind of exaggerated--”

“It’s fine.” Keith cuts him off, a note of finality in his voice. That was that then.

Lance fidgets uncomfortably.

“... _So_ ,” he says, dragging out the _o_ and breaking the silence. “Anything else you want to talk about?”

Keith pointedly avoids Lance’s gaze at that, _a-hah_ , so he _had_ been thinking the same thing. A smirk plays on Lance’s lips despite himself.

“Like what?”

“You _know_ what,” he says, chewing on the syllables and making Keith cringe. Keith shakes his head.

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

“You have to be more specific--”

“Oh, like um, how soft your lips were or how you were just about to let me _jam my tongue down your throat_ …” he trails off, satisfied with how red Keith has suddenly become. He chuckles, briefly, before a spike of pain shoots up his leg from his foot. He flops back down from his resting position on his elbows, letting his head hit the plush armrest of the love-seat. “Ugh.”

Keith still doesn’t say anything back, so after a moment of silence Lance takes it as his cue to continue. “Listen. So it happened and like, we could pretend it didn’t. And make things awkward. But, if you remember correctly, the whole reason I even started talking to you in the first place is so that this _wouldn’t_ be awkward. So basically, that’s not _my_ first choice.”

Keith nods, wordlessly, to indicate that he’s listening. Lance starts again. “And also, that kiss was pretty good. If I say so myself.” he can feel his own face start to redden, but he tries his very best to ignore it. “So I would not, be _opposed_ , to doing that again.”

Grinning now, underneath all his embarrassment, Keith lets out a breathy laugh. “Wow.”

“ _What_?” Lance pouts, crossing his arms. “I just poured out my heart to you, and you’re going to _laugh_?”

“That’s just… That has to be one of the worst ways to ask someone to kiss you that I’ve ever heard.”

Lance scoffs. “Oh, yeah, because your memory of your past is so clear. Whatever, you’re _just_ as desperate because you haven’t even gotten any in like _thirty years_.”

Instead of a response, Lance gets a pillow to the face. After letting out a muffled yell and shoving the pillow off himself to the ground, Lance is _very_ surprised to see Keith hovering over him. Specifically, practically pinning Lance underneath him.

He’s being cautious not to accidentally bump his foot, but his hands are on either side of Lance’s head and if he lowered himself down off his knees, Keith would be directly straddling him.

“You just admitted you were desperate.” Keith smirks, and _wow_ that’s a look Lance hasn’t seen on him before.

Keith’s lips are on his before he can get a witty comeback out. He kisses him like it’s his last day on Earth.

(Lance seriously hopes it isn’t.)

 

* * *

 

> **Lance** : alrighty everything is GUCCI
> 
> **Lance** : me and keith talked
> 
> **Hunk** : Oh good
> 
> **Hunk** : Is shiro still on for tomorrow then?
> 
> **Lance** : yup
> 
> **Lance** : … hey
> 
> **Hunk** : Wassup
> 
> **Lance** : do you guys think, by any chance
> 
> **Lance** : that Keith might… idk
> 
> **Lance** : disappear? Leave this realm? Tomrrow?
> 
> **Hunk** : … hm
> 
> **Pidge** : i mean, maybe
> 
> **Pidge** : like, ascend? Like we were talking about
> 
> **Lance** : huh
> 
> **Pidge** :? wouldn’t that be a good thing
> 
> **Pidge** : I mean he’s a little… out of his element. Plus he’s probably not supposed to be here at all
> 
> **Lance** : …
> 
> **Lance** : yeah i guess
> 
> **Pidge** : ???
> 
> **Pidge** : oh no.
> 
> **Pidge** : you’re _falling_ for him
> 
> **Lance** : he’s my roommate and we’re buddies. Of course i’m gonna be sad to see him go
> 
> **Pidge** : you aren’t even in denial anymore you’re just lying to us
> 
> **Pidge** : lance. Hunk saw you making out with Keith
> 
> **Pidge** : we told you not to
> 
> **Lance** : :/
> 
> **Hunk** : bro :(
> 
> **Lance** : i gotta go to sleep
> 
> **Lance** : talk to you guys later
> 
> **Pidge** : wait, Lance
> 
> **Pidge** : Lance???
> 
>  
> 
> [✔ Seen by **Lance** , 11:42PM]
> 
>  

* * *

 

“They’re almost here,” Lance says, reading the text from Allura out loud. Keith nods, sitting next to Lance on the couch. He’s visibly nervous--and to be honest, it must be spreading, because Lance felt a little queasy himself. Keith has his hands splayed out, tapping at the fabric on the couch, and Lance kind of wants to grab it, to comfort him… But he isn’t sure if that would be weird. The whole situation is kind of weird.

Most people don’t make out first and then hold hands later.

Most people _also_ don’t have ghosts living in their apartment, either, but that was neither here nor there.

They sit in silence like that for a little bit longer--Lance doesn’t really know what to say. It’s not a _heavy_ quiet, really, but a tense one for sure. He almost jumps an entire foot when his phone buzzes in his pocket.

 

> [ **5:35PM** ]: Here!! Meet in the lobby?
> 
>  

And he swallows. Show time.

“I’ll be back in a second,” he tells Keith, but he isn’t sure that Keith is even listening--he seems a little lost in his own world.. He heads toward the elevator, wiping his hands on his pants as it arrives. This was ridiculous. He was being ridiculous.

Everything was going to be _fine_.

Allura is standing in the lobby when Lance limps his way there, notably _without_ Shiro. He gives her a cheerful wave, and then a slight frown.

“Ah, Lance!” she says, cheerfully, when she spots him. And then, as if reading his expression, continues. “Shiro is parking the car, he’ll be in in a moment. But this is a good chance to talk first.”

Lance nods. “Right. Yeah, uh… So what did you tell him?”

Allura nods, bright smile still on her face as she answers.

“Absolutely nothing!”

Lance stares at her. Her face doesn’t even _twitch_. She isn’t kidding.

“... Nothing?” Lance repeats, as if she’ll suddenly go _‘oh, did I say nothing, I meant he already knows everything_ ’. She doesn’t. She only nods.

“Yes! I took into account what you said--that sometimes seeing is believing, and I think you might have been onto something.”

He narrows his eyes. “You just didn’t know how to tell him.”

Her bright smile turns much more serene now. “You know, maybe we should be cutting back on hours at the store, I’m sure me and Coran could handle it…”

Lance puts up his hands in defeat. “Okay, okay, sorry! I just, um.” he clears his throat. “This makes things a little more complicated, but there’s been new developments, so I think this is still doable.”

She tips her head, curiosity written all over her face. “What kind of new developments? Oh, and also, why are you limping?”

_Because my ghost roommate slammed my foot in a door during an argument, and then we talked it out, and then made out_.

“It’s a long story.” he says, instead. “Both of those things. You’ll see it, though.”

“Ah,” Allura says, and then, just as if on cue, Shiro walks in.

Lance literally thinks that Shiro and Allura might be two of the most attractive people on Earth. He swears that they must have been made in a lab of some kind, because he’s seen a lot of genetic-lottery winners in his lifetime, and none of them come _close_ to touching the kind of attractive that the two of them possess. It’s like when they walk into a room, and stand next to each other, the air becomes fresher and everyone’s acne clears right off their face.

It’s some powerful stuff. He’s not sure the world is _ready_ to handle what they’re going to look like on their _wedding day_.

“Lance,” Shiro says, beautiful smile gracing his face. “Hey! How have you been?”

Lance smiles back, even though he can _tell_ it’s weak. “Professor Shiro! Or, well, I guess I don’t have to call you that anymore!” he adds on, jokingly. Shiro laughs.

“When did you ever call me professor, honestly.”

That was true. Shiro had always been one of those chill instructors, who didn’t care what you called them as long as you payed attention and got the work done.

Lance didn’t really do either of those things, but hey, that’s why he had Pidge and Hunk.

“You’re right. Glad to see that you don’t forget old students like me!”

Shiro gives a slight grin, scratching the back of his head. “Yeah, well, you were kind of memorable, Lance.” well, that was probably because he was always pestering him to extend deadlines. Whatever. Shiro continues, “So what’s this about? All Allura told me was that it was a big surprise.”

She grins brightly. Lance sweats.

“Uh, yeah, it’s big alright!” and _hopefully you won’t think I’m playing some kind of prank on you and never speak to me again_. Lance starts heading back toward the elevator, motioning for them to follow as he limps his way past the lobby.

Shiro and Allura exchange frowns with each other.

“Lance, is your foot alright?” he asks, voice dripping with genuine concern. Lance grins weakly. Damn Keith.

“Oh, yeah, definitely! I just dropped something on it and it’s a little sore.” it was actually shooting pain right up his leg the more he stood around. Not fun.

“Well, here. At least let me help out,” he offers, wrapping an arm around Lance to help him along. Lance obliges, only because he’s actually in a lot of pain right now, and also because Shiro would _probably_ insist on it. He wasn’t really in the mood to fight it. Allura gets in on the other side of Lance as they enter the elevator, and he has the sudden realization that he is sandwiched between the two hottest people on the entire planet.

God _damn_. He should mark this date on a calendar, or something.

“Maybe you should see a doctor about this.” Shiro supplies, helpfully, as the elevator dings when they reach Lance’s floor. Lance lets out an overly-loud, fake laugh.

“Ha- _ha_.” he says, glaring at Allura as she rolls her eyes. “No, that’s okay, I’m sure it’ll heal on it’s own.”

“... Are you sure? Better safe than sorry...”

“Lance would rather die than take advantage of employee benefits.” Allura says, tone flat. Lance sticks out his tongue at her as he and Shiro hobble down the hallway together. Allura sticks her tongue back out, and for a moment, Lance almost forgets that this is situation is a big deal at all.

Forgets, right up until he opens his apartment door and sees Keith standing a few feet from the entrance.

“Wow, Lance. Not a bad place at all.” Shiro says as he steps in. Keith’s eyes follow him, his face a bizarre mixture of awe and maybe a little sadness. “For a kid right out of college, especially. You could be doing a lot worse.”

“Thanks.” Lance replies, hoping Shiro doesn’t notice that he’s not looking at him. “I mean, uh--I’m working on getting more furniture.”

A laugh comes from Shiro. “I can’t say my first place looked all that much different. Well. Maybe not the giant TV.” he moves around to inspect it, and Keith follows him, just a few steps behind. “I do think I had a giant pool table or something, though,” he adds bashfully.

“Ha, classic.” honestly, Lance is really hoping he’s not coming off as distracted as he sounds, watching Keith watch Shiro. He’s not sure he’s ever seen so many expressions on one person, let alone Keith. It’s sort of mesmerizing, but he’s trying to keep his face as impassive as possible.

“He’s a lot bigger, that’s for sure.” Keith kind of half-laughs as he speaks out loud. Lance definitely thinks there’s a tinge of sadness to his voice. “I mean, wow. But he still has that Takashi face, for sure. I’d recognize him anywhere.”

Lance doesn’t say anything back-- _obviously_ \--but still can’t seem to tear his eyes away from how Keith looks.

Maybe… Like he might almost cry? Lance can’t imagine Keith crying. Lance doesn’t particularly _want_ to.

“I’m glad it was worth it.” Keith says, and now Lance thinks _he_ might be the one about to cry.

“Lance? Are you alright?” Shiro asks, and Lance snaps his attention back to him. _Oops_. Shiro gives him a soft, if not slightly concerned, smile. “You kind of spaced out there for a second.”

Allura is sending him a knowing look. Lance swallows.

“Just like in class!” he says, and gives _another_ obviously fake laugh. He isn’t fooling anyone, Shiro had him in class with Pidge and Hunk for Christs sake. He knows what Lance’s real laugh sounds like. God, this was so bad. “Oh, uh, you can sit down on the couch if you want? Do you want anything to drink?” he motions toward the love-seat, and both he and Allura sit down. Shiro shakes his head.

“No thanks, Lance. I’ve got a water bottle here.” he says, and holds up the bottle. Duh. Shiro is _totally_ the kind of person that carries a water bottle everywhere they go. Keith snorts at this.

“Oh, he’ll drink water _now_ , but as a kid he’d only drink it if it was mixed with sugar and Kool-Aid.” Lance blinks at that, because he can’t do anything else. Wow, this was really intimate. Like, brining out the baby pictures level of intimate.

“Okay, so what are you two cooking? I know you didn’t bring me here to show off your cardboard furniture.” Shiro says, jokingly, but Lance pales and sends Allura a glance. She chews on the side of her cheek.

“Well,” she starts, and Lance is glad because she’s been suspiciously quiet all this time. She intertwines her fingers with Shiro’s, the same way Lance had kind of wanted to with Keith earlier. “Lance has something he wants to tell you.”

Oh, she was _really_ going to pawn it off on Lance like that? What the _hell_ , Allura. His eyes widen. “Oh, uh--”

“Lance,” Shiro starts, and Lance instantly recognizes what Hunk and Pidge used to call his _fatherly-professor_ voice. “I know that, as your professor, I always told you you could come to me with anything--and this is still true, even just as your friend. Anything at all, and I’ll accept and understand no matter what.”

Lance blinks, once, twice, and he’s pretty sure he hears Keith stifle a laugh.

Did Shiro… Did Shiro think he was trying to come out to him? _Did Shiro think that he called both of them all the way to his house so he could tell him he was gay?_ Oh, _hell_ no. Lance went through his bisexual crisis in High School, no way was he reliving this.

“I see ghosts.” he blurts out. That could have been more tactfully done.

Shiro gives him a blank stare. That was obviously _not_ what he was expecting. He opens his mouth, and then shuts it, before finally giving out an,

“Oh.”

And then glancing at Allura like _did he hit his head when he dropped something on his foot?_. Lance clears his throat to bring the attention back to himself. He’s very, _very_ vividly reminded of when Pidge and Hunk were once sitting in that very same place. Man. Lance is starting to feel sorry for _himself_ , always put in these situations.

“I’m serious. I’ve been able to ever since I can remember. And I can talk to them too.” he says, and it comes out kind of… Rehearsed. Probably not adding any credibility to his case. Shiro gives him a half smile.

“Like a medium?”

“Yeah, exactly! Except I’m not useful for communicating--Well, maybe I will be today.” he sucks in a deep breath. Shiro still doesn’t look convinced (he actually looks a little confused, by that last part,) and honestly, Lance doesn’t blame him. But that’s why he has _Keith_. “I can prove it.”

Allura is glancing around like she’s looking for something--and Lance realizes that it’s probably the whiteboard. Of course. He motions for Keith to come closer, but Keith is one step ahead of him--and before he’s even fully prepared, Keith has a hold of his wrist.

Their reactions are interesting, at the very least. All of the color drains out of Shiro’s face, while Allura just kind of… Gapes. No one says anything. Lance is really hoping Shiro doesn’t pass out.

“You…” Allura is the first to speak. “You didn’t tell me you could do _that_.”

“It’s a new development.” Keith answers, before Lance can get the words out. Shiro’s mouth is hanging open at his voice. It’s an unattractive look for a very attractive man. Very tentatively, Keith speaks again, “Hi Allura. Hi, Takashi.”

At that, Shiro seems to find his voice again, even if it is somewhat hoarse sounding. Lance feels like a strange intruder. He wonders how all those mediums on TV--fake or not--even pretend to do stuff like this. It’s _insanely_ personal. “The only people who call me that these days is Mom and Dad.”

There’s another heavy silence. Lance doesn’t know what to say. Allura still seems too shocked for long sentences, and Keith and Shiro are having a staring contest. Finally, Shiro speaks up.

“Keith?”

“Takashi.”

Shiro laughs. “Is this some kind of… Allura, can you pinch me? Just to make su-- _OW_ , okay, not that hard?” Allura still seems kind of shocked, but she’s smiling now.

“Keith.” Shiro repeats again, and Keith gets that same smile he had on his face in the picture. Lance smiles, too.

“Should I call you Shiro instead? Since that’s what everyone calls you.”

Shiro stands up and, instead of answering, moves forward to wrap Keith up in a hug. Keith’s grasp on Lance’s wrist breaks as Keith hugs him back, and Lance expects Shiro to release him, thinking he disappeared, or for Allura to start looking around.

But they don’t.

And Lance realizes, a little bit belatedly, that that’s because _he’s still there_ , visible.

“It’s been so long--”

“How is this even possible--”

“What’s up with your _hair--_?”

“What’s up with _yours_ \--?”

“You’re still the same age--”

“A college professor, huh--”

And they talk over each other, like that, for a while. Just back and forth. Allura gives Lance a big grin, as if to say _mission successful_ , before turning her attention back to the two.

And even he had to admit, it was hard to look away. If this is why people did it--actual mediums, that is--then he understood. Maybe he should give the whole ghost thing another chance.

Their hug finally breaks apart, and Shiro’s teary-eyed smile drops a little. He had never seen Shiro break his composure like this--to be honest, Lance wasn’t sure if it was even possible, he always seemed so put together.

“Keith, what are you doing here?” he finally asks. Keith frowns.  
“I’ve always been here.” he answers, and Shiro shakes his head.

“I mean, here. I guess I don’t know… Anything about the afterlife, but…” Shiro turns his attention to Lance again, for the first time in what seems like hours. “Does everyone turn into a ghost?”

Lance shakes his head. “No. Only some.”

Shiro turns back toward Keith. “So why are _you_ here?”

Keith fidgets. “I don’t know. I’ve been here for awhile. I can’t figure it out. Lance can’t figure it out.” he turns back toward Lance, and the look in his eyes is so pure that Lance almost can’t hold his gaze. “But everything that has happened so far--me remembering everything, me being visible--that’s all thanks to him.”

Shiro looks back toward Lance. “Thank you.”

“I-I didn’t do anything. It was all Pidge and Hunk. They found out the information and we all pieced it together, if it was just me, we’d be at square one.” the genuine emotion, the gratitude in Shiro’s eyes makes him want to cry, himself. And then they’d probably all cry, and Lance’s neighbors would wonder what the _hell_ was going on now.

“I’ll have to be sure to thank them then, too.” Shiro says, and then looking at Keith, smiles again. “I can’t believe I got to see you again.”

“Me either.” Keith says, and Shiro’s smile fades slightly once more. Keith frowns.

“Keith. I… I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t be.” he says, like he already knows what Shiro’s apologizing for. He shakes his head.

“But the fire--”

“You were seven,” Keith stresses, “And it wasn’t… It was an accident. You got out alive, and that’s what’s important.”

Shiro shakes his head. “You were important too. We could have gotten out together, _grown up_ together.”

There’s silence as Keith averts his gaze, just for a moment. “... We wouldn’t have…” he trails off, like he’s not sure where he’s going with the sentence. “Nevermind. It isn’t important. We’re both here, talking to each other now.”

“And I’m still not entirely convinced I’m not going to wake up and realize that this was all a really sad dream,” he replies, “But yeah. You’re right. It happened, and I’ve moved on.”

Keith nods.

There’s a silence in the air, that has an almost serene quality to it--and Lance can’t take it any more.

“So this is it?” he asks, voice betraying him by breaking a little. All three of them turn to him. “This is the end?”

Keith doesn’t nod, like he expects him to, or start floating toward the heaven, or glow in a beautiful and awe-striking way. Keith does absolutely nothing, except look at him like he’s stupid, and sound slightly annoyed that Lance ruined the moment when he says, “What are you talking about?”

“Um. Like, you know. You got your memories back and… Met your brother, and talked it out, and… I thought you might. Y’know.” he clears his throat. “ _Meet the maker_.”

Keith blinks, then looks down at himself, and then back up. “... No. I don’t think so.”

“... You don’t?”

“I don’t feel any different.” he looks at Shiro. “Do I look any different?”

“Not really,” Shiro says.

Keith shrugs. “Guess that wasn’t it, then.”

Lance gapes. He can’t believe, he can’t _believe_ \--

“I spent all that time, worrying, and being sad, and nervous because I thought you were just gonna up and disappear on me and I was gonna be a wreck.” he spits it out, all at once, and Keith raises an eyebrow. “And you’re just… Staying here? That _wasn’t it_?”

“You were gonna be a wreck?” Keith questions, because of course that’s what he gets from Lance’s ramblings. Lance waves a hand in the air.

“Not the point! You’re _staying_?”

Keith shrugs. “I guess?”

Lance thinks he might kiss him, but Shiro is standing right there, looking _way_ too amused, and Allura is sitting on the couch still and they’re all staring at him, so instead he crosses his arms.

“... Well, good.” he finally says, and Shiro and Allura both laugh. Keith gives him a little smile though, like _yeah, I’m glad too_ , and that makes it okay.

“Well,” Shiro says, bringing the attention back to him. “I guess if you’re staying around, we have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Yeah,” Keith replies. “I guess we do.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _i can't believe you guys all thought i'd do it_ have a little FAITH IN ME
> 
> this story isn't even close to being over im having too much fun. thanks for all your continued support <3 (even if most of you seriously thought i was going to probably end the story here, GOSH)
> 
> (i hope shiro is ok it's the first time i've ever written him and it was a heavily emotional scene SO...)


	10. The Smoked-Not-Broiled Apartment of Lance Sanchez

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for a panic attack in the beginning of this chapter!

Lance stirs awake gently, the smell of delicious food wafting into his bedroom from the kitchen.

‘ _Ah, Hunk must be making breakfast,_ ’ he thinks to himself, ‘ _I’ve really missed Hunk’s breakfasts._ ’

And then he thinks _‘Wait, but why would I miss Hunk’s breakfasts if he literally cooks all the time?_ ’

His eyes flutter open as he realizes he’s in his own apartment, in his own bed, that he lives at by himself (well, _sort of_ ,), and you know what, that pleasant smell from earlier smells a little bit like _burning_ now.

With that revelation, he’s up in an instant. Not even the shocks of pain that shoot up his leg from jumping onto his bad foot slow him down as he shoves open the door and--

_Holy shit there’s smoke_.

He skitters to a halt in the kitchen, throwing an arm over his nose, and stopping just behind where Keith was - standing in front of the stove. Lance gasps at the burnt… Remains of whatever was once cooking on the pan.

“Keith!” he shouts, and hip-checks the other out of the way - not that he necessarily _means_ to, but Keith is standing around rather uselessly and he needs to get to this pan, _stat_. Out of the corner of his eye, Lance sees Keith kind of stumble backward, but he’s too focused on the smoking food than anything else.

He shoves the pan into the sink and pours cold water onto it, sighing when he realizes that there wasn’t ever a real threat. Just some… _Very_ terribly prepared food.

Crisis averted. The mangled remains of the breakfast fall into the drain with the flow of the water, and Lance turns back around to send Keith a sharp glare.

“ _Keith_ ,” he starts, edge to his voice, but stops when he realizes that Keith is…

Looking more than a little out of it, to be honest.

Lance lowers his voice on instinct. “Hey, man, are you alright?” when he doesn’t get an answer, he presses on, “It was probably an accident - and nothing happened, it’s not like anything caught on-”

_Fire_. Keith died in a fire. And there was smoke everywhere -

“Shit.”

He rushes past him, toward the window, and pries it open as far as it will go. There was only one in the apartment, but maybe opening the door… No, that might trigger the smoke detectors in the hallway. Why weren’t the smoke detectors in _the apartment_ going off? That’s not a good sign, but-- also, not the issue right now.

Lance ignores the stinging in his foot and moves back toward the oven, turning the fan above it on, and grabs Keith’s hand.

He’s surprisingly pliable--not glued to the spot like Lance thought he might be--and lets Lance lead him. _Unfortunately_ , Lance hadn’t really thought ahead to this point. The smoke had inched its way back to his bedroom by now, and even if it probably _was_ less thick back there, he didn’t think feeling trapped in a room was something that would be beneficial at the moment. His eyes dart toward the living room door…

No, Keith couldn’t leave.

But. Keith had also broken every other rule up to this point--and not that Lance was keeping track, but it had all started happening one after the other, and--

Well, fuck it. Worst comes to worst, he’s back where they started.

Lance pulls Keith along, cracking the door just enough to get the two of them through. “Okay, buddy, we’re trying this,” he says, giving Keith about two whole seconds of processing time before he tugs.

There’s no resistance, no shattering noise, no dramatic glowing light. He moves on through, like _any other person_ , and Lance slams the door shut behind him and lets Keith rest against the hallway wall.

Honestly, Lance isn’t sure if getting out of there was the right idea or not - now they had a whole _other thing_ to deal with - but he pushes the thought to the back of his mind. Lance focuses back on Keith, who seems to get some functionality of his body back as he sinks down the ground slowly and squeezes his eyes shut. _Shit_. Lance felt awful for even thinking about yelling at him earlier.

But this, this was something he could deal with.

He sinks down to the ground with him, and Keith still isn’t meeting his eyes, but this is something he knows. Knows this, knows how to bring someone down from an attack like this. Memories of his little sister, shaking and breath ragged, coming into his room. And just like with his little sister, Keith’s hands are trembling slightly. He thinks of the methods he always used. Counting never really worked with her, _sometimes_ he could talk her down from it, but usually… He just…

Lance gently pries Keith’s hands open, and links their fingers together. “Feel free to join in?” he suggests, smiling slightly when Keith’s eyes focus on their hands. Deep breath in, and:

“ _This thing_ ,” he starts, keeping the tempo slower than the original and praying that Keith recognized the song. “ _Called love… I just, can’t handle it_ ,”

Keith’s eyes widen in recognition, and Lance immediately feels relieved as he continues, “ _This thing, called love… I must, get ‘round to it_ ,”

“ _I ain’t ready_ …” Lance holds up their linked hands between them and squeezes. “ _Crazy little thing called love_.”

Keith looks up and finally meets his eyes - before moving them away again, and Lance knows that he’s at least getting there. He goes to start singing again, before Keith lets out a small snort.

“That’s so cheesy.” his voice shakes a little, but it’s a huge step forward. Lance grins, letting their hands fall down between them.

“But it worked,” he says, giving him a smug look. “So, I mean…”

Keith squeezes Lance’s hand back, and it catches Lance off-guard so much that he lets out a noise that a dog toy would be jealous of. And then he turns red. From the unexpected hand-squeeze or from the weird noise he just let out, he doesn’t know, but it gets Keith to look him in the eye again as he laughs.

“Yeah, thanks for… That.” he pauses, frowns. “I’m sorry about-”

“Don’t even mention it.” Lance says. That pan was a goner, for sure, but it was replaceable. More replaceable than Keith’s mental well-being.

He kind of doesn’t want to, but there’s no real reason for them to still be holding hands, so Lance unlinks their fingers and sits back on his haunches to look at him. “I still can’t believe that you can just… Be seen, now. And apparently leave the apartment.”

As he says it, Keith seems to realize just where they are - looking around the hallway like it’s completely new to him.

(It is, Lance realizes. He’s never been out here before.)

“I left?” he says, out loud, and it makes Lance realize just _how_ out of it he was before. “I… Left.”

“Yeah,” Lance says. “You left! Man, what’s even the difference between you and a regular human, at this point?”

“I don’t eat.” Keith points out. “Or sleep, or--”

Lance waves his hand. “Sounds like the life to me. Well, no, I’d still wanna eat but - no physical ailments? Sign me _up_.”

“Stop that.” Keith says, frowning. _Always_ the debbie downer. Lance rolls his eyes.

“I’m just showing you the bright side of things! Anyway,” he lets a mischievous smirk form on his face. “Let’s pay Pidge and Hunk a surprise visit? I think we have a _lot_ to catch them up on.”

Keith points at his pants. Oh, right. The Hello Kitty PJs. “You might want to change first.”

Lance stands up, stretching. “I think I pull off Hello Kitty very well, thank you,” he says, “But I will take your advice and go get some actual pants.” he covers his nose and reaches for the door. “Be right back.”

“Be careful.” Keith is frowning, and steps back a little bit. Lance nods, voice muffled behind his own hand.

“ _Aw_ , so considerate. You know I will be!”

 

* * *

 

Pidge answers the door, and looks so excited when they see the two of them there and Lance thinks they _just_ might explode.

“This is _huge_!” they say, after Keith and Lance fill them in. “Oh man, and it happened after you met Shiro? So it wasn’t a moving-on thing, but a fulfilment thing…?”

They tap a finger to their chin inquisitively. Lance scowls.

“Yeah, it wasn’t a moving-on thing, and _you_ had me all worked up over it. I was getting ready to say my goodbyes for _nothing_!”

“We all make miscalculations,” they shoot back at him, calmly. “And besides, you don’t know that yet. It could be something else. He could literally be ascending _right this second-_ ”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Keith says. Pidge raises an eyebrow.

“... Well, okay then.” they shrug. “Maybe it’s more voluntary than that or something. I’m just saying Lance, better to be safe than…”

They pause. Sorry doesn’t seem like the right term, and they all know it.

“... having regrets.” Pidge finally finishes. Lance frowns, but knows they’re right. He sniffs indignantly anyway.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” he says. Pidge rolls their eyes.

“Oh, please, you guys might as well just be slobber-”

“Anyway!” Lance interrupts, “Where’s Hunk?”

“At work.”  
Lance deflates. “Aw, that’s no fun. I wanted to see his reaction to this.”

“Well, we could always go see him…” they suggest, and Lance perks back up again. Of _course_ they could. And it would be perfect, too.

“I can buy a replacement pan!” he says, not noticing the way Keith winces beside him. Pidge frowns.

“What happened to your old… Wait, why even? You don’t cook. I have so many questions.”

He wasn’t about to throw Keith under the bus like that, so instead he shrugs.

“The handle fell off.” Lance lies, smoothly. Pidge doesn’t look convinced, but lets it slide. “And you know what? Maybe I want to try.”

“Better have the fire department on speed dial,” they mumble under their breath. Lance ignores them.

 

* * *

 

Hunk screams when he sees them.

Or, more accurately, Hunk screams because Lance sneaks up behind him and yells in his ear when he’s trying to stock, but it’s _whatever_. Same difference.

The boxes of pancake mix that were in Hunk’s arms go flying across the tiled floor, and Lance instantly feels guilty at the long sigh Hunk lets out. He just sounds so _worn_.

“Hi, Lance.”

“Aw, Hunk! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare ya that bad.” he swings an arm around his neck. “Just stopping by to show you something _really_ cool. I’ll even pick up all the boxes.”

Lance leans back up, but Pidge and Keith are already on it. The boxes are in their arms, and Keith taps Hunk’s shoulder.

“Thanks,” Hunk says, not looking up from the shelf where he’s straightening the remaining pancake mixes. “It’d take me-”

He stops, midsentence, when he looks up and sees Keith.

Then he turns back toward Lance, behind him.

Then he looks at Keith again.

“Lance…,” he starts, “Why is your apartment ghost standing in the store I work in?”

“Because,” Lance moves around to Hunk’s other side, and throws his arm around Keith. Keith frowns, but doesn’t shrug out of it. “We’re taking Keith on an adventure to see the city. Since he’s a _free ghostie_.”

“Don’t ever call me a ghostie again.”

Hunk stares at the two of them. “And.. You don’t have to be touching to be visible?”

“Nope.” Lance answers, popping the p at the end. “He’s a _real boy_.”

At that, Keith squirms out from under Lance’s arm. Lance uses this to demonstrate his point.

“See?”

Hunk’s eyes dart between the two of them, and then to Pidge, who was suspiciously quiet. They give him a shrug.

“I don’t get it either. But it’s fascinating, right? I wonder if there’s some sort of cause...” they fall back into that contemplative silence. Pidge has two modes when they work stuff out: internal and quiet, and external and _absolute rambling_.

Hunk turns back to the shelf. “I get off in thirty minutes, if you guys came here to pick me up - but you need to go walk around or something, before my manager sees. You know you aren’t supposed to be here around me!” the last part is clearly directed toward Lance, as Hunk darts turns his head to glare. Lance scoffs.

“That was like, two years ago, and it’s not my fault that-”

“I almost lost my job, dude-"

“You are just as at fault as me! Also: it was _so_ worth it.” Hunk doesn’t look like he exactly disagrees with that part. Lance crosses his arms.

“But yeah, I get it, can’t have us in the same room without causing chaos, blah blah.” he waves a hand dramatically, already heading out of the aisle. “I gotta make a pee break, I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

As Lance walks away from the rest of the group, trying to cover up his limp, he realizes:

This is the first time he’s been alone in a couple of days.

A year ago, that wouldn’t have been unusual. Sure, Hunk and Pidge were always around, except for when they were at class, or studying, or at work. He didn’t spend an excessive amount of time by himself - Lance always did tend to bring attention to himself, and with attention comes people. He never really minded, but he also never really minded when he was left alone.

But now, it felt almost… Strange.

Lance thinks about how odd that is as he washes his hands in the bathroom. It was probably because he hadn’t even left home in a few days - not since before he’d been sick, anyway, and Keith was always around the apartment.

Just weird, but not something he couldn’t shake off.

He exits the bathroom, and scans the aisles. Now, if _he_ were one gremlin, one employee, and one visible ghost, where would _he_ be?

His eyes catch a girl standing a few feet away as he looks around, and he squints. Did she look familiar? Had he seen her before? She’s looking down at her nails, but when he stares at her she looks up, and…

Oh, shit. That was the ghost girl from the cafe! He averts his eyes, immediately, but it’s too late--eye contact was made. The world is _melting_.

He looks back up and she’s making a beeline, right for him. Lance sighs, and resigns himself to his fate. He’s lucky that there aren’t too many people around here.

“You can see me?” she asks, and her voice is syrupy-sweet. She’s pretty, too, _maybe Lance had a thing for ghosts_? He pushes the thought out of his head. Not going there. Not today at least. He can’t imagine what kind of weird search history he’d end up with if he travelled too far down _that_ rabbit hole.

He pulls up his phone, and pretends he’s talking into it when he answers her. There might not have been many people around at the moment, but he doesn’t want to take any chances and start weird rumors.

“Um, well, yeah,” he replies, into the phone, but the sides of her lips quirk up in a smile.

“Clever,” she comments, “You know… You aren’t a ghost, right? I can tell. You’re the first alive person I’ve talked to.”

“You can talk to other ghosts?” he asks, despite the fact that he probably shouldn’t be surprised by that. She flicks a piece of hair over her shoulder, frowning slightly.

“Yeah? But they’re usually such downers, I’d way prefer to talk to living people again.” she sends him a wink, and he swallows.

“I-”

“Lance.”

Both the girl and Lance turn their heads, and she raises an eyebrow. Keith walks toward them, Pidge and Hunk noticeably absent from his side.

He stops a few feet from Lance, looking at the other ghost with a frown. “Who’s this?”

“Nyma,” she offers, with a grin, and Lance realizes he didn’t know her name before then. “I should have assumed that more of us would gather around you.”

Keith squints at her. “More of us?”

“Ghosts.” she clarifies. Lance scratches the back of his head as Keith sends him a skeptical look.

“She’s a ghost?”

Lance opens his mouth to respond, but Nyma interrupts him. “Yeah, I am. You couldn’t tell? Must be new… Hm,” she taps her chin. “Isn’t it hard to keep that up?”

Keith looks like he has no idea what she’s talking about. “Keep what up?”

She gestures toward his body. “You’re walking around visible, right? I only ever knew a few others who could even do that for a short period of time.” a shrug. “Everyone has their strengths, I guess.”

Keith mulls this over silently as Lance speaks up. “Wait, how long have you been around, anyway?”

“Mmm, a while? Like a year or two.” Nyma lets out a small laugh. “Keeping an eye on my ex. It’s kind of fun to torture him.”

Oh man. That must be the guy she was messing with at the cafe. Lance kind of wants to know information about that--like, uh, what exactly he did to make a dead girl want to hang around him for two years, but before Lance can comment there’s the distinct sound of footsteps approaching them. Nyma flashes them a grin, and backs up a few steps.

“Good talking to you, Lance.”

He catches Keith bristle beside him, but with a wink, she’s gone. She brushes past Pidge, who appears from an aisle, waving at them to catch Keith and Lance’s attention.

“Hey, Hunk is clocking out now. I was thinking we could leave here and hit up that one restaurant, and then…” they trail off, looking between Lance and Keith. “Uh, is everything okay?”

“Fine.” Keith answers. It’s a clipped, short tone. Lance frowns at that, but gives Pidge a shrug.

“Uh, I guess?” Keith isn’t looking at him - whatever the issue was, he had a feeling he was going to have to drag it out of Keith if he didn’t get over it soon. Pidge sighs.

“Gross, don’t have lovers spats in the middle of a store. It’s rude.” they say, turning their back on both of them before they can refute the comment. “I’m gonna go wait for Hunk. Meet you guys by the entrance. We’re leaving in five, with or without you!”

Lance watches as they walk away, before turning back to Keith. He isn’t meeting his gaze.

“Dude,” spreading out his arms. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Keith says, _clearly_ lying, and Lance gives an irritated sigh because why is he like this.

“Come on, man. Things would be so much easier if you just-”

Keith cuts him off with an annoyed sound, as if he was literally having to wrangle the words out of his throat. Hey, Lance had to give it to him for trying, at least.

“It’s really stupid, and I’d rather not…”

Lance frowns as he watches Keith, brows furrowing in confusion as the other’s cheek start to color. _What_?

And then it clicks.

“Oh-”

“Stop making that face!”

“-You’re _jealous_!”

Lance looks way too smug, which only increases when Keith doesn’t answer him. He claps his hands together in front of his face, holding back a snort. “You’re jealous over that girl!”

Keith looks about two seconds away from stomping away from him, but instead stays firmly planted. “I said it was stupid.” he snaps, and Lance shakes his head.

“It’s not stu--Okay, well, maybe a little stupid because I’ll probably never _see_ her again…”

“I don’t care who you flirt with.”

Lance huffs. “ _I_ wasn’t the one flirting, and apparently…” he pokes a finger into Keith’s chest. “You do.”

“It’s none of my business.” Keith replies, swatting at his hand. Lance crosses his arms in front of him again, tilting his head slightly.

“Why not?”

Keith stares at him, as if he’s trying to gauge whether he’s messing around or not. “Because we aren’t….” he trails off, and it’s obvious he wants Lance to be able to fill in the blank so he doesn’t have to say it out loud. Lance squints.

“Aren’t…?”

Keith is still staring at him suspiciously, taking a step forward. “God, you can’t be this dense…”

Lance realizes they’re like, super close now. If Lance leaned forward a little, they could totally reenact that little scene Hunk walked in on the other day and _ohhh_.

“Aren’t dating!” he shouts, a little too loud. Keith shoves his face into his hands. “Well, you should have just said that. We can, you know,” he makes a vague gesture with his hands that judging by the look he’s receiving, Keith definitely does not know. “DTR!”

“...DTR.” Keith repeats. Lance nods.

“Define The Relationship, Keith. Come on, keep up. _Acronyms_.”

Keith lets out an irritated sigh. “You want to… D..TR in a _department store_?”

“Dude, don’t say it like _that_ ,” Lance shudders. “You’re making it sound gross. And, yeah, I _mean_ ,” he reaches over and grabs Keith’s hand, similar to this morning. Despite feeling particularly smooth over that one, Lance feels his face heating up. Keith looks about the same, staring at their linked hands with wide eyes. “We could keep staying just as weird roommates who make out, _or_ …”

Keith looks away as Lance wiggles his eyebrows, but doesn’t pry his hand out of the others. Instead, he drops their hands down so they’re resting. “... Okay.”

Lance gapes, “Wait, did I just successfully _woo_ you?” and Keith winces.

“ _Now_ who’s saying things weird? Come on.” he gives a tug to Lance, and in a complete role-reversal from this morning, Lance follows Keith’s lead. They find the two where Pidge promised-at the front of the store-and when Hunk sees them he waves and smiles happily. Pidge narrows their eyes, staring at their hands.

“Ah, my dearest friends,” Lance starts, whipping his arms out to either side of his head and nearly punching Keith in the face in the process. Keith lets go and moves a few inches away, in fear of his nose. “How I have missed you. Also, _super_ sorry about earlier Hunk.”

Hunk shrugs. “Hey, man, it was just boxes. At least it wasn’t something breakable...Like glass.”

“Stop throwing shade. That incident was _years_ ago!” he replies, scowling. “And you kept your job, and it was a fun time, so there weren’t even any losses.”

“Except for the chewing out I got later.”

“ _Like I said_ , no losses. So, are we ready to get this freak show on the road?”

“I’ve definitely spent enough of my life inside this store.” Pidge says, heading toward the exit. The rest of them follow as Hunk groans.

“Oh man, think about how _I_ feel.”

Lance pats Hunk’s shoulder. “Could be worse.”

Hunk snorts. “Man, even if that’s true that’s really crappy to say. Never become a counselor.”

“Pff… Imagine Lance as a couples counselor,” Keith pipes in, and they all laugh at that. Lance pouts, bumping Keith slightly. He scowls as he stumbles sideways, and bumps him right back--and then they’re both trailing slightly behind the other two, too busy hip-checking each other to pay attention until Pidge whistles.

“Can you two stop flirting for two seconds to get on the bus? Me and Hunk are _starving_ ,” they complain, but Lance sees the slight smile underneath. He grins back.

“Nope!”

“Ugh, get a _room_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have had the WORST past couples days ever, and i'm sorry this is up a little later than i would like--and to be totally honest, i'm not happy with this chapter but my main laptop i do all my writing on has CRAPPED OUT on me (thank god i back up all my writing) and the other computer is having screen issues where i can't use it for more than an hour or two at a time without the image burning into it. (what are the odds of my two computers shitting out on the same day... omg)
> 
> next couple of chapters might be up slower because of that. AGAIN, sorry, and sorry for the questionable quality of this chapter because of limited editing time. maybe i'll come back and fix it later if i can! it's sad because this chapter is very important foreshadowing wise but i just feel like i wrote 4000 words of garbage lmao
> 
> (about this chapter: shiro will be making a return too, very soon i promise. there will be more keith and shiro brother feels because that's highly important. also, this is the one and only time jealousy will be used as a plot device i promise lol i just needed something to kickstart the #feelings convo and im a cheapo)


	11. The Movie Marathon of Lance Sanchez

“Lance, I’m headed out.”

Lance pops his head out from under the bundle of covers on the couch, frown on his face. “What? To where?”

“Takashi’s.” Keith replies, adjusting one of Lance’s old backpacks on his shoulder. Lance _had_ told him he could use it whenever he wanted, _but--_

“To spend the night?”

“Yeah. Since you’re working late tonight I’d figured I’d just stay over there since, you know,” Keith shrugs his shoulders, “No key.”

Oh, _right_. He should probably take care of that and make a duplicate already. Lance looks away, grinning guiltily. “Hah, _oops_.”

Keith scowls. “Yeah, oops. Add that to your list of things to do that you never will, next to getting your foot checked out--”

“I resent that!” Lance huffs, burying himself in the covers again. “I’ve been deathly ill over here, and now that I’m finally recovered I’m expected to go straight to work. Like a dog.”

“A limping one.”

“ _Whatever_. Are you sure you know your way to Shiro’s by yourself? You’ve only been out once.” Lance stresses the last part, hoping that he comes across as _concerned_ and not _doubtful_. Keith rolls his eyes.

“I lived here for 20 years before, you know. Stores change, street names don’t.”

Lance chews the inside of his cheek. Keith makes a good point, but it still makes him uneasy for some reason. He was always the one leaving Keith at the house, not the other way around. He stands up, cracking his back and letting the blanket fall off and pool at his feet.

“Well,” he drawls, walking toward Keith. “Have fun then. Text me if anything interesting happens.”

Keith groans. “Can’t I just call? Texting takes so long--”

“No!” Lance scowls. “You must _assimilate_ into our modern day culture. Phone calls are for urgent things. Plus I can’t multitask if I’m on the phone.”

“What?” Keith gives him a very confused look. “It literally takes two hands to text. With a phone you can just--”

“No emojis!” Lance shouts, pumping his fist into the air. “I win, because you can’t send emojis over phone call.”

“Truly, the most important part of a conversation,” Keith adds dryly. Lance nods, stepping forward to press their foreheads together.

“See? You get it.”

Keith grins a little bit, pink dusting his cheeks and _God_ Lance loved it when he blushed. And he blushed a _lot_ , actually. It was an interesting trait for him to have--if you had asked him when he first met Keith if he had thought this guy who bickered and rolled his eyes at Lance was bashful at all, he probably would have said no.

And, in all honesty, Keith wasn’t like that normally. He had confidence about him, a kind of sharp edge. Keith was a cool guy, which made it even more fun that he was… like _that_ whenever Lance was forward. It almost made Lance think that he had never _had_ someone who acted toward him with romantic intention before.

That thought… Actually kind of upsets Lance a little.

“What’s wrong?” Keith immediately asks, and Lance realizes a little too late that he’s letting his internal thoughts spill emotion onto his face. The frown drops, replaced with a Signature Lance Smirk.

“Oh, nothing, just thinking of how lonely I’ll be tonight by myself in this big apartment.”

And the blush is back. Lance 1, Keith _0_.

“It isn’t that big,” Keith says, “And you’ll survive. Invite Hunk and Pidge over.”

Lance’s face brightens up again. That’s... Actually a fantastic idea. It’ll be the three of them, just like good old times.

“Maybe I will!” he says, before winking at Keith. “But I’ll still be lonelier without _you_ , babe.”

Lance thinks for a minute that that’s going to be the final straw before Keith pushes him away, and judging by Keith’s face he’s thinking it too. But instead, he grabs Lance’s chin and angles it so that when he presses their lips together, hard, their noses don’t bump. It’s so quick Lance doesn’t even get a chance to close his eyes.

“Bye,” Keith says, before turning on his heel and promptly exiting the apartment. Lance gapes after him, lips still tingling from the hurried kiss.

How could someone like _him_ do stuff like _that_ and still get embarrassed when Lance calls him _babe_?

 

* * *

 

 

Keith was very thankful that his memory came back, because it was definitely nice to remember this city like it was the back of his own hand again. Buildings may change, or be destroyed or built anew, but it wasn’t like the entire city had rearranged itself. Once he got his footing back, out with Pidge, Hunk, and Lance, he hardly even needed them to tour him around. He had spent so much time wandering around this city that he probably knew it better than they did.

He takes a few back alleyway shortcuts to get to Takashi’s. It wasn’t a particularly long walk in the first place, but he’s still pretty impressed by his own time. He opens his phone and double checks the text--once, twice--just to make sure he’s at the right address before he knocks.

And then, he waits and fidgets uncomfortably.

He knows, logically, that Takashi is Takashi no matter what--is his little brother, no matter _what_ \--but he also knows, logically, that this reunion should not be taking place.

His little brother should not be _older_ than him.

If he was slightly worried that Allura was going to answer the door, Keith shouldn’t have been. Because hardly a few seconds pass before Shiro answers and, all smiles, pulls him into a hug.

“You made it here pretty fast,” Shiro comments when they pull away from each other, and Keith shrugs. Shiro’s made way for him to come in, so he walks past him and looks awkwardly around the apartment.

(It’s a lot more furnished than Lance’s, if that’s even a thing that needs to be stated.)

“Yeah,” Keith finally answers back, “I remembered some shortcuts around this area, so I took them.”

Shiro frowns, closing the door and following behind him. “The alleyways?” he asks, sighing when Keith nods in affirmation. “You can set your stuff down over there. And that’s dangerous, you know.”

Keith levels him with a serious stare.

“I’m dead, Takashi.”

Shiro splutters, and Keith grins.

He had always been like this, and it’s kind of relieving to Keith to see that it still is the same kid he grew up with. Doting, concerned 7-year-old Takashi that would have the anti-septic and the bandaids ready, leave the window cracked so he could sneak back in at 2am. Keith smiles at him fondly.

“Good to know some things don’t change.” he sets his bag down where Shiro told him to, before turning back to face him. “Always the responsible little brother. Do you constantly worry about all your students?”

Shiro shakes his head. “... Not all of them. I don’t have the energy for that.”

Keith laughs. “Yeah, right. You had the energy to keep up with _me_ when you were seven, I think you can handle a few adults.”

“Well, it’s true I don’t ask them where they get _their_ black eyes from whenever I see them,” he jokes. Keith smiles a little, bittersweetly.

“Does that happen often?”

“Not as often as it happened with you.”

There’s an awkward, tense silence that fills the air when Keith doesn’t know how to respond back to that. _Sorry_ doesn’t seem adequate. He stares at the floor, and Shiro stares at him, until finally Shiro clears his throat.

“So… I kind of had an idea in mind,” he starts, grinning again, “A real throwback.”

Keith raises an eyebrow and looks at him. “Oh yeah?”

“Remember that arcade you used to take me to all the time?”

Keith hums. “The one two blocks away.”

“Yeah. Well… It’s closed down, but I had an even better idea.” Shiro smiles a full smile, and it’s nearly blinding. “You wouldn’t _believe_ how far technology has come.”

 

* * *

 

 

Throwing a slumber party at 11PM may have been a bit unconventional, but Lance was an adult and could do what he wanted.

(To give him a little credit, he would have picked an earlier time than eleven, but being an adult and doing what he wanted came with this side effect called _having to have a job_. But at least he got to throw slumber parties _whenever he wanted_.)

So he sent a single message to the group chat:

 

> **Lance** : HUNK, PIDGE, MY PLACE TONIGHT AT 11. HUNK BRINGS THE POPCORN PIDGE BRING THE HARRY POTTER MOVIES, WE’RE ABOUT TO MARATHON THIS BITCH

 

And then he shoved his phone in his pocket and got ready for work because he was already running late.

Obviously, when he finally does get home Pidge and Hunk shoot him a message to tell him they’re on their way because he has the two most awesome friends alive.

“Hunk,” Lance says, when he answers the door, “I trust you have brought the special ingredient?”

“Movie-theater butter popcorn, right here.”

Lance gives him fingerguns. “Right on, my dude. And Pidge?”

“I only brought the first three movies because we all know we’re going to fall asleep before we get any further, but _aye_ , all here.”

“Then it is _on_!” Lance says, throwing the door open. They take this as their cue to invite themselves inside. Lance closes the door behind them.

“Where’s Keith?” Pidge asks, looking around. Lance blinks.

“Oh, he went to Shiro’s for the night. They’re having Bro time, which is why we get to have bro time!” he grins brightly.

“Keith is a bro,” Hunk adds. Pidge laughs.

“More like a _boyfriend_. Right, Lance?”

“I-” Lance opens his mouth to retort, before cutting himself off and closing it again. Finally, he settles on, “What, no lecture from you?”

Pidge shrugs. “I gave you a warning, not a lecture. I was just _saying_.”

“I’m happy for you.” Hunk replies, giving Lance a warm smile. Lance returns it.

“See! At least someone knows how to congratulate.” he sticks his tongue out at Pidge, who sticks their tongue out back.

“I’m happy for you too,” they say, rolling their eyes. “You’re such a drama queen. I was just worried for you. You wear your heart on your sleeve, and even you have to know you’re in uncharted territory here.”

“Stop being so realistic, Pidge. It’s so annoying. You’re bursting my bubble.”

“Well, you’re constantly annoying, so at least I have a one-up on you.” they flop down onto the couch and speak up again before Lance can argue further. “So, how’s your ghost-mance been going?”

Lance squints at them. “What, from a scientific standpoint or from a relationships standpoint?”

They huff. “I’m not _that_ clinical! I’m asking as a friend who’s curious about you.”

The microwave beeps in the background as Hunk sets the time for the popcorn.

“Yeah, scientifically curious about my ghost boyfriend.”

A pillow promptly comes flying from over the couch, smacking directly into his face. Well, he couldn’t talk shit about Pidge’s aim at least. “Stop harassing me because Keith isn’t around for you to bicker with.” they roll over onto their stomach, burying their face into the cushions of the armrest so their voice is muffled. “Weirdest damn relationship I’ve ever seen…”

“Kind of an understatement, with, you know. The whole supernatural aspect thing added in,” Hunk adds in, carrying the bowl of popcorn. He sits down next to Pidge as they straighten back up, and Lance hops over the back of the couch to plant himself firmly between the two of them. _Just like old times_.

“I’m feeling _heavily_ judged,” he says, using his best fake-wounded voice. He throws an arm around either of them. “And I’m so hurt right now.”

“Go put the movie in, Romeo.”

 

* * *

 

 

The night that had started out slightly awkward between Shiro and Keith, had taken a vast turn for the better.

“How can you be 20 years out of practice with this and still be so _good_?” Shiro asks, in utter disbelief as Keith dodges barrels with ease and climbs to the top of the screen. Keith shrugs.

“Muscle memory.”

“It isn’t even the same controller,” Shiro points out. “I don’t think that’s how that works.”

Keith reaches the top, again, and sets the controller down. “ _You’re_ the one who’s out of practice. Old man.”

Shiro grins at that. “Maybe, but I could still school you in every other video game. Like Smash Bros. Besides, if _I’m_ old, how old does that make you?”

“I don’t even know what that is, so it doesn’t count,” Keith fires back, but he’s grinning back at Shiro, “And I’m twenty because ghosts don’t age.”

Shiro gives him a lopsided smile, and then falls silent. Keith is tempted to ask him if he’s got Galaga, too--but the quiet between them is comfortable, not awkward like it was earlier, and he doesn’t want to mess that up.

“Allura should be home soon,” Shiro finally breaks the silence, though his voice is quiet. Keith doesn’t say anything back, so he continues, “... Hey, Keith.”

“Hm?”

“How long were you… You know, a ghost? The entire time since you… Or…”

Keith thinks on that. It hadn’t been _that_ long--or, well, he didn’t think. But it was hard to put passage of time to it when most of it had been just him in an empty apartment, no calendar.

Lance had been the first consistent person he’d really seen. There had been other people in and out of the apartment, maybe for maintenance or to show off the place, but as soon as he realized no one else could see him Keith had accepted his fate and stayed out of the way. Not that it really made a difference, since they didn’t know he was there anyway--but still. He didn’t like the idea of being watched without knowing, and he didn’t like the idea of being the one _watching_ either.

“I don’t know for sure.” Keith answers, slowly, “But I don’t think it was that long before Lance moved in, at least. I don’t remember anyone but me being around until then.”

“Oh,” Shiro says, looking relieved. “Well, at least you didn’t have to be alone for too long.”

Keith nods.

Shiro stares.

“... What?” Keith finally asks, not liking the look in Shiro’s eyes. He shrugs.

“Nothing, just. You and Lance.”

Keith wills himself not to blush as hard as he possibly can. Instead, he ends up looking constipated, and if Shiro was trying not to laugh earlier he’s completely failed now. He snorts, covering up his mouth with his hand.

“Don’t look so serious! I was just asking. Well,” Shiro pauses, “Confirming. It was kind of obvious.”

“The last time I saw you we weren’t even a thing. Officially.” Keith tacks onto the end. Shiro raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t push that.

“Like I said, obvious.”

Keith shoots him a dirty look. “Okay. What about you and Allura?”

Shiro looks amused. “What about us?”

“Like-- Where did you meet, and stuff. I don’t know. Fill me in.”

“Okay,” he replies, leaning back into the couch cushions. “We met in high school, she was a foreign exchange student. She convinced her dad to let her come back to the states for college, where we caught up again and started dating. And now we’re engaged.”

“Sounds like the abridged version to me,” Keith says, but smiles anyway. “When’s the wedding?”

“Next month.” Shiro says, then shakes his head. “Er, wait. No, three weeks now? Time flies.”

“Wow. So where’s my invitation? Am I invited to the wedding?”

Keith means it jokingly, but Shiro gives him a sincere smile and nods.

“Of course, Keith. … Well,” he pauses, grinning cheekily, “Only if you bring a date.”

He laughs at the look Keith sends him.

 

* * *

 

 

“ _I... can touch you… now_ ,” Lance hisses, bringing up his index finger to poke Pidge’s forehead. They flip the bowl of popcorn at him, ignoring Hunk’s disgruntled cry.

“Get _away_ ,” Pidge laughs, pushing at Lance’s wrist. “You’re like _three_ movies too early for that!”

“Then would you rather I grow a face on the back of my head?” he asks, grinning. Pidge shivers.

“Stop it. That scene gave me nightmares as a kid.”

“It gives me nightmares now,” Hunk adds in. Lance nods in agreement, before turning back toward Pidge.

“I’m going to reenact all the really weird Voldemort scenes now.”

“ _Please_ don’t.”

Hunk sighs from beside them. “Can’t we just watch some movies like a bunch of normal people?”

“Hunk, _please_ ,” Lance turns back toward him, frowning. “We’re engaging in some very serious Potter recreation. Didn’t you ever learn to _actively_ partake in media?”

Pidge snorts and grabs handful of popcorn, tossing it at Lance. He dodges out of the way, just in time, and the smattering kernels smacks Hunk right in the face.

“Oh,” he says, after a pause, keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead. “It is _on_.”

Hunk pulls a bag of potato chips out of his backpack--to which Lance’s jaw drops.

“You’ve been holding out on us, _dude_?”

Pidge darts across Lance’s lap toward in, grabbing the other end of the bag. “I bought those last week!”  
“Well I _brought_ them!”

“Well I wanna _eat_ them!”

Chip bags are not meant to be tugged at from three different directions, and unsurprisingly the bag bursts open, scattering potato chips in every which direction.

And after that, it is chaos.

The movie is abandoned completely, in favor for an all-out snack war. Chips and popcorn go flying through the air, the loveseat ends up tipped over, and at some point Lance ties the sleeves of Hunk’s jacket around his neck to wear it like a cape, pointing a sharpie at Pidge.

“Pick up your wand, Potter! Pick it up!” he shouts, chest puffed out. “I presume you’ve been taught how to duel?”

Pidge sticks their tongue out at him. “You aren’t even reciting the lines correctly!”

Dramatically, Lance ignores them to turn toward Hunk. “Malfoy! Take care of my light work.”

“Why am _I_ Malfoy?”

Lance hobbles toward Pidge’s backpack half in-character and half because of his damn _foot_ , digging through it despite their protests. He tosses a pencil toward Hunk, before standing back up and jabbing his sharpie into the air.

“Three-way duel!”

“This is the worst canon destruction _I’ve ever seen_.”

 

* * *

 

 

Keith stays on Shiro’s couch that night, playing old arcade games. It’s a different change from what he usually does while everyone is asleep all night--which is always either mess around on his phone or read old magazines--and Keith appreciates it.

Maybe he should talk Lance into buying this… Whatever it was. “Retro” machine.

He doesn’t pause until the sun starts to come up, and Allura strolls out of the room and into the kitchen. She doesn’t even pause to look at him before brewing a cup of coffee.

All things considered, Allura has been relatively calm considering the entire situation. She froze for a second when she finally came back home last night, eyes fixed on Keith--before laughing.

(“ _Shiro told me you’d be over here tonight! I must have forgotten, I’m sorry Keith.”_ )

And Keith could hardly blame her for that.

After taking a few sips of her freshly brewed coffee, she seems to remember that Keith is there at all--and directs a bright smile at him as she sits down in a recliner next to the couch.

“Oh, good morning Keith--” she pauses for a minute to yawn, covering her mouth. “Er, how rude of me. I apologize.”

“Morning.” Keith replies, watching as she blinks tiredly. Allura was, _very clearly_ , not a morning person. “Is Takashi up?”

She stares at him for a few seconds, before what he asks seems to process through her mind. “Oh Shiro--Yes, he’s up. He’s always up early. Um, I mean. He’s in the shower.”

She takes another sip of her coffee, and Keith feels kind of bad for her.

He hears a door open from somewhere in the hallway, and then Shiro emerges from around the corner, fully dressed and looking _much_ more awake than Allura was.

“Good morning, Keith,” he greets, before moving to kiss Allura on the forehead. “Good morning to you too.”

“Mmm.” Allura replies, holding her cup of coffee like it was a precious item. He grins at her, and it makes Keith happy knowing that Shiro has someone to be with.

“Hey,” he starts, bringing both of their attentions toward him. “I think I’m gonna head back soon. It was good hanging out with you guys, though.”

Shiro nods. “Sounds good. I didn’t want to rush you or anything, but I teach a pretty early class today. And Allura is…”

He turns back around, where said girl is sunken into the recliner, eyes closed and mouth slightly open.

“Asleep.” Keith finishes. Shiro gives him a bashful grin.

“She isn’t much of a morning person.”

“I gathered that.” Keith stands up, swinging the bag over his shoulder. He makes a move toward the door, when Shiro’s hand on his shoulder stops him.

“Hey, Keith.” he starts, “Come back again, alright? Before the wedding?”

Keith gives him a slight grin, and lets Shiro pull him into a hug. “Of course. I’ll stop by again soon.”

He takes the way back that he took there, and it’s still so early that there’s hardly anyone out walking around. It’s kind of…

Peaceful.

Keith didn’t realize how much he missed the outdoors until he was back outside. Kind of funny, really.

He knocks on the door to the apartment when he finally arrives, and isn’t all that surprised to see Lance looking even more dead than Allura had just a few minutes ago when he answers the door.

“... Hi.” Lance says, squinting like even the hallway lights are too bright for him. Keith frowns, taking in the way Lance looks--

“Are you wearing Hunk’s jacket as a cape?”

“Oh.” Lance looks down at himself, tugging the jacket off. He tosses it over his shoulder, to the floor behind him “… No.”

Keith looks around Lance’s shoulder to the inside of the apartment, and even though all the lights are shut off what he sees is…

He doesn’t even know where to start.

“What _happened_?” he asks as Lance moves aside to let him in. Lance grins at him, sleepily, and _oh God_ that’s cute. Keith looks away.

“Harry Potter,” Lance says, as if that’s supposed to instantly answer all of Keith’s questions. Keith tips his head, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Hairy what?”

Lance’s eyes suddenly go wide at that, like he’s been zapped awake. “You don’t know Harry Potter,” he whispers, in a scandalized voice. “Oh my God.”

He stomps over and shakes Pidge and Hunk awake, who were on the back side of the couch (which was flipped over) and swaddled up in a blanket on the floor, respectively. “Guys, wake up. Wake up, Keith doesn’t know what Harry Potter is.”

“Good for him.” he thinks he hears Pidge mumble. Lance scowls.

“We have to watch all the movies. Hunk. Get up, we need to watch the movies.”

There’s a groan from somewhere inside the blanket swaddle. “Now?”

“Yes, now!” he tips the couch back onto its original position, and to their credit Pidge doesn’t even move as they’re jostled around. Now, instead of lying on their back, Pidge is face-first into the couch cushions. Keith is almost impressed.

“Get ready for the best movie marathon _of your life_ ,” Lance says, grinning and suddenly much more awake than he had been. “You will never be the same.”

“In a good way or in a bad way?”

“Both,” Hunk answers, still not moving from under all the blankets. Keith goes to sit on the floor in front of the couch, since it didn’t look like Pidge was moving, and... They just looked _so_ comfortable, he’d have felt bad scooting them over. Lance puts the movie in and sits down next to him, leaning his head on Keith’s shoulder.

Ah, there’s that sleepiness back.

“Get ready to have your mind blown,” he yawns, pressing more of his weight onto Keith. Tentatively, Keith wraps his arm around Lance as he snuggles closer.

Overall, Keith thinks, a pretty good start to a day.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was like. chicken noodle soup for the soul to write. total self indulgence and im not sorry this time lmfao
> 
> thank all of you for being so sweet about the last chapter! my week has gotten much better and i think a lot of that was thanks to all the positive vibes i got from you all.
> 
> thank you all as always for being amazing and for still reading all of this. <3 i hope the back-and-forth between POVs wasn't too jarring, but it was at least fun to write!


	12. The Question: Answer of Lance Sanchez

“Keith.”

Lance lays, sprawled out as far as he can go across the couch, feet laying on Keith’s lap and arm dangling off the side as he watches his boyfriend tap his fingers across his cellphone screen. Ever since Pidge showed him how to run an emulator for old arcade games, he hasn’t hardly been off of it.

(Except for when it crashes and Lance has to show him how to get it running again, for what feels like the millionth time. Whatever, he’s sure he’ll remember eventually.)

“Hm,” Keith responds, not even looking up from his phone. Lance attempts to stick his feet into his face, which earns him a glare and as Keith shoves his feet off of him for the fourth time. “Lance, what?”

“Hey! Don’t ‘what’ me like that! I was just… Thinking.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

Lance scowls. “Ha-ha, very funny joke the first seventy times I heard it... From Pidge. Anyway, I bet you'd like to know that I was thinking about you.”

This finally grabs Keith’s interest enough to make him look away from the screen long enough to need to pause the game. He raises an eyebrow, frowning slightly. “Me?”

“Yeah,” Lance says, making the effort to sit up again and scoot closer to Keith. “You. You know, the guy who had like, ghost amnesia and couldn’t tell me anything about himself but then got all his memories back and still didn’t tell me anything about himself.”

Keith blinks at his dry tone. “You never asked.”

“I never asked-- Keith, I’m not supposed to ask stuff like that. It’s supposed to just. Come out. And stuff. You’re such a private person! For all I know you could have been a serial murderer before you died.” Lance throws his arms up in a dramatic gesture, before crossing them in front of his chest. “Honestly, any other roommate I would have done like, a full background check on before they even moved in. We make-out and I don’t even know anything at all about you.”

“Well it’s not like I could write a biography about you either.” Keith shrugs, setting his phone down in his lap. “What do you want to know?”

“A lot,” Lance admits, and then pauses for a moment. “But that’s a good point. We could play the question game!”

At Keith’s confused stare, Lance continues, “It’s like Truth or Dare. But without the dare. Just truth. I ask you a question, you have to answer honestly, you ask me a question, I have to answer honestly. Back and forth.”

Keith shifts on the couch so he’s sitting cross-legged, facing Lance, and grins. “Okay, fine. You ask first.”

Lance can’t completely hide his shock at how easily Keith agrees, but decides not to push his luck. He mirrors Keith’s pose, and feels distinctly like an excited middle schooler. “Okay, fine. I’ll start you out easy. What’s your favorite color?”

“Red.” Keith answers, immediately, and… Lance feels kind of stupid. Obviously. “I know yours is blue, so I won’t even ask. How about… Your family?”

The question kind of takes Lance off-guard. “Uh, what about it?”

“Like siblings and stuff.”

“Oh,” Lance says, feeling a little weird that he had never really brought them up before. “Keith, my buddy, I could literally talk about them all day. I’m the second oldest of five kids, and one of two boys. They’re all only half-siblings except for my older sister. My mom remarried when I was five.”

Keith smiles. “Sounds like a fun house.”

“Depends on the definition,” Lance replies, lips quirked upward. “Growing up, I didn’t like my step dad very much. Or my biological dad. I’m on okay ground with them now, though.” he pauses. “My turn?”

Keith nods, and Lance hums.

“Lemme think… Is Shiro your only sibling?”

“Yeah,” Keith says, shifting to adjust his weight on the couch. “When I was 12 I got adopted by my family. Takashi was born a year later. He was a big surprise, since my mom didn’t think she could get pregnant.”

He smiles at the memory, and Lance processes the information. A question teeters on the tip of his tongue, though he hesitates--how personal is too personal?

As if reading his mind, Keith speaks up again. “I never knew my birth mom. Or dad. They never looked me up. It’s not a big deal to me.”

“You know, my mulleted lover, you’re pretty good at reading my mind.” Lance sends him a wink. Keith looks unimpressed.

“If this is how you flirt with everyone, it’s no wonder you were single.”

“Ouch! And if those are the zingers you throw out then it’s no wonder you’re so bad with comebacks.”

“If you want my comeback,” Keith starts, words slow and calm, “You can wipe it off your mouth later.”

Lance gapes.

Keith, predictably, begins turning red as the implications of his own words start to hit him. Just as Lance’s shock turns into amusement--and a smirk snakes it’s way across his expression--he receives a couch pillow to the face.

“Hey--You’re the one who said it!” he shoves the pillow back at Keith, and clutches at his stomach when he starts laughing. “Holy… Christ, dude. I take it back. I’m so sorry. You’re the master, man.”

Keith huffs. “My turn.” he says, eager to get Lance to stop laughing and to change the subject. “What did you study when you were in college with Pidge and Hunk?”

“Jesus.” Lance wipes a tear from his eye. “Oh, man. Okay. Okay. Uhh, my major was Music Business and Management. I know, very pretentious sounding.”

Keith blinks in surprise, and Lance picks up on that. Grinning, he continues, “Yeah, I get that reaction a lot. What, expected me to be something more fine-artsy?”

“Maybe.” Keith replies. “Why’d you drop out?”

“Ah-ah,” Lance tsks, “That’s two questions. It’s my turn. So,” he leans in a little closer to Keith, who instinctively frowns at his expression. Probably smart. “Did you die a virgin?”

Lance earns one hell of a nasty glare for that question. “No. Why’d you drop out?”

He isn’t sure if Keith means no as in not answering that, or no as an answer itself, but his gut tells him that pushing the issue is probably going to end up with Keith leaving the conversation entirely. Still, he can’t help but mess with him a little bit.

“You can’t just change the subject like that! Fine, whatever. I dropped out because Allura offered me more hours and… Some people just aren’t meant for college.” he shrugs, “I still work with music and I’m still in business. Only I don’t have homework, now.”

Keith nods. “That’s cool. I never went to college either.”

“What did you do?” Lance asks, and Keith frowns a little.

“Mooched off of my parents and lived in their apartment. I was working on getting my own place, but… Life got in the way. I jumped around from job to job a lot as a teen.”

“Life got in the way?”

“Now who’s asking two questions?” Keith grins a little, and Lance rolls his eyes.

“Okay. Touche.”

As much as Lance was finally learning about Keith, he couldn’t help but feel that there was still so much he didn’t know--and that he almost had more questions than before.

What an enigma.

“How’d you meet Pidge and Hunk?”

“College, freshman year, first day. Er, well, orientation day. All three of us were in the same department.” Lance rests his chin on his knuckles, elbow on his thigh. “Hunk and Pidge are both in Audio Engineering. Pidge is more into the software stuff, though. Hunk is better with equipment.”

Keith nods. “That seems fitting.”

“And mine didn’t? Wow. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, Keith.” he sticks his tongue out, but there’s no venom behind his words. “Okay, just one last question, ‘cause I’m starving. Not to bring up old bad memories or anything, but I’ve been curious for awhile. What were you doing with that grilled cheese when you smoked out the apartment the other day?”

Keith frowns, eyebrows knit together like he’s searching for the correct way to answer. “Just… Trying… To do something nice.” he pauses, “For you.”

Lance blinks as the cogs turn in his head. “For me? You were trying to--Oh! Make me breakfast!”

Keith doesn’t respond.

“That’s surprisingly thoughtful of someone who doesn’t eat. Heh.” Lance smirks. “You do like me. Even if it looked more like charcoal than anything else...”

“I take it back.”

“Nope!” Lance hops off the couch, grabbing his jacket off the back where it was strewn. While it hasn’t been consistently cooler outside, yet, the autumn chill was beginning to set in. “No take backs.”

“Where are you going?” Keith asks, looking up at him. Lance offers his hand out to him like a knight helping up a princess, slight bow and all. Keith grins at the dramatic gesture.

“To go get something to eat. Would you like to join me, so you may watch as I gracefully shove food into my mouth with the utmost elegance?”

Keith takes his hand, rolling his eyes as Lance tugs him up and intertwines their arms. “Wow. How did you ever guess that was my favorite pastime.”

Lance winks. “I’m just that good.”

 

* * *

 

Lance would like to think that he’s observant enough. Not that he was ever the kind of person to get hung up on the details, but he notices things, when they’re relevant, usually.

And Lance was noticing that Keith was looking a bit paler.

“Keith,” Lance prompts, as they walk down the street together. “Are you feeling okay?”

Keith gives him a look, like maybe Lance just sprouted another head. “Yeah?”

Lance frowns. Did ghosts get sick? Keith wasn’t acting like they did. But Lance hadn’t seen that shade on him since--

Oh, no.

Lance claps his hand onto Keith’s forehead before he can back away. Keith jerks back instinctively-- Lance didn’t take offense. It wasn’t about that, anyway.

“Lance, what--”

“You’re cold.” Not ice cold, but cooler than he had been. Lance glances around, realizing that there were definitely some people staring. Grabbing his hand, he drags Keith into the nearest alley, out of the way.

“Keith. You’re not visible anymore.”

Keith blinks once, twice, as Lance’s mind scrambles for an explanation. They were even still touching, right now. Seemingly following Lance’s train of thought, Keith’s eyes dart down to where their hands are connected.

“What? But--”

“I don’t know.” Lance answers the question before Keith can even get it out. The alley is kind of gross, and smells a little, but at least no one can stare at Lance seemingly talking to thin air. “Do you feel any different at all?”

“No. Are you sure I’m not visible anymore?”

Lance shifts his weight, running a hand through his hair. “I mean, I’m pretty sure? You know it’s hard for me to tell, but the way people were staring and how pale you are…” he trails off, remembering something. “Didn’t that ghost girl from the store say something about this?”

Keith frowns. “What?”

“Nyma.” Lance says, “Yeah, Nyma. Didn’t she mention she was impressed you were visible for so long? I remember that.”

Silence falls over them both, as Keith looks pensive. “So, what. Do we go and find her and demand answers?

“Dude,” Lance says, shaking his head. “We’d have to run into her somewhere. I don’t know where she lives, or where she hangs out, or even what her last name is. Was? Is.” he clears his throat. “Not to mention it’s not like we can ask anyone about her. It’d be impossible to find her with how big this city is.”

Keith lets out a frustrated sigh, and Lance feels it right along with him. Just when things were going so good.

“Keith, let’s just go home. I’ll hit the cafe on the way back, and we can text Pidge and Hunk and see if they have any ideas.” Lance suggests, sounding defeated. Not to mention, his foot was starting to bother him again. It was healing nicely earlier, at least.

Keith hesitates for a moment. “... Fine.”

Lance notices, as they set back out onto the street, how hyper-aware he gets of Keith when Keith isn’t… Visible to others. He knows no one would probably even notice if they brushed up against Keith, given how feather-light his touch is like this, but it still weirds him out that people look right through him.

Keith keeps his head down like he’s sulking. Lance can’t really blame him.

They’re almost to the cafe when Keith breaks their silence.

“You don’t need to respond to me,” he starts, “and maybe it’s better than you can’t really, since you’d just end up fighting with me--but you really need to go see a doctor about your foot. You can’t keep limping around.”

Lance purses his lips in annoyance. Damn Keith, lecturing him when he couldn’t even fight back. He wants to at least shoot him a glare, but he’s trailing just a little bit behind and he doesn’t want the girl further back to think he’s sending dirty looks at her.

They continue the walk the rest of the way in silence. Lance doesn’t quite know if he’s grateful that Keith isn’t lecturing him, or sad that he’s back to sulking.

When they finally get to the cafe, two things are immediately apparent:

Pidge is asleep at a table with their laptop in front of them. Lance has half a mind to steal it from them as some sort of mean prank, but he decides against it since stealing others property in public is sort of frowned upon, and also he thinks Pidge might actually snap all of his fingers if he touched their laptop, and,  
Nyma is there.

She isn’t looking in their direction, but Lance nudges Keith and tries to discreetly signal towards her. His eyes widen as he follows Lance’s motions, frowning when he sees her--

And then he promptly marches past Lance and makes a beeline straight for Nyma. No one even sends either of them so much as a sideways glance. Perks of being invisible, Lance guesses.

He doesn’t want to call too much attention to himself, so he stands around and pulls out his phone, pretending to text on it while he watches their conversation.

Nyma turns around to face Keith when he says something, looking vaguely surprised, then grinning. Keith scowls at whatever she says next, and then she looks around for a moment before her eyes land on Lance.

She gives him a little wave, and he returns it-- discreetly--Holding up his hand just slightly, and then turning it into a head scratch. It’s pretty awkward, and reminds Lance of something he’d do if he thought he saw a friend but it turned out to be someone else. Nyma laughs, turning her attention back toward Keith.

Lance’s eyes dart over to Pidge’s passed out form. Still asleep.

Nyma and Keith start over towards him, and Lance’s eyebrows furrow. If they were wanting to have a conversation in here, they better both be prepared for it to be fairly one-sided.

“Didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” Nyma says, grinning as she moves toward him. She stops briefly, in front of him, before tilting her head slightly toward the door. “Follow me out to behind the store, yeah?” as she sends him a wink and sashays her way past. He sends a glance toward Keith, who’s looking annoyed, but jerks his head in the direction she went.

Lance really hopes no one happens to come look behind the cafe, because he’s not sure how he would explain a three-way conversation if he’s the only one actually there.

“So,” she starts, once they’re all outside and far enough away from the door. “I see that you’re back to ghost again.”

“What can I say,” Keith replies, dryly, “I just love when people literally look right through me.”

She snorts as they finally reach the back end of the store, stopping. “Hey, a lot of people would kill to go invisible. It’s like straight up a super-power? Anyway, you obviously don’t know a whole lot about how this all works, so I can help you.”

Lance blinks, waiting for her to continue. She smiles slyly at him.

“I’m sensing a condition.” Keith says. Nyma grins.

“Right, of course. Smart girls don’t just hand out information for free.”

Keith gives her a skeptical look, but Lance nods his head. “Okay. Name your price.”

He’s positive Keith is sending him a Look right now, but he’s directly avoiding his gaze. Nyma glances at Keith, before turning and giving Lance a bright smile.

“Alright, two birds, one stone. You have a lot of friends, right? Or some really close ones?” she switches her gaze back to Keith, giving him a long stare. Her lips are still quirked upward, but there’s a more serious feel to her expression. He frowns.

“... Yeah, I guess.” Keith replies, crossing his arms in front of himself. She nods, sly smirk returning.

“Yeah, I figured. You know, those must be some tight bonds since you were walking around like an alive person would for--how long? That’s a lot of energy. You know how flowers thrive off of being paid attention, or talked to, or whatever?”

Keith and Lance both nod. She looks mildly impressed.

“Okay, I kind of think I just made that up right then, but sure. Anyway, we’re like that.” she gestures toward herself, then Keith. “We’re here, because of some kind of reinforcement. Most ghosts fade out… Leave to… Wherever after a while, because people forget about them and move on. You died not that long ago, right?”

Frowning, Keith shakes his head. “I died back in the 80s.”

“Whoa. Weird?” she tips her head. “I’ve... Never seen that happen. But it’s not like I’ve seen everything. I mean, if ghosts are real, what’s not to believe? Anyway, back to my point.

“So, basically: you’ve used up all your energy, like some kind of freaky soul-sucking vampire, and you’re stuck. Just like me, right now.” she licks her lips. “But, you can get it back.”

“How.” Keith’s words aren’t stated as a question. A smile snakes it’s way across her face.

“Assuming it’s been a couple days since you’ve hung out with anyone other than loverboy here, you’re probably just running low on that reinforcement-energy…. Whatever-it-is.” suddenly, she turns her attention toward Lance. “I’m stuck like this because I messed up. I had a system, and I need to get it back, but I need to be able to turn visible again to get it started. Help me out, pretty please?”

She bats her eyelashes. Lance blinks.

“You still… Never said how.” he points out. She rolls her eyes.

“I’m saying: Let me hang out with you and your friends. It would take like…. Twenty minutes of them just acknowledging me to fix my issue, and I can get my system back. And in exchange, I’ll show you,” her eyes dart toward Keith, “How to go visible and invisible at will, so you don’t waste all your precious energy sitting around doing nothing just in case you aren’t around a whole lot of your friends for awhile.”

It’s a lot to take in. They’re all three silent for a moment, despite the expectant look on Nyma’s face as she grows more impatient. Keith finally opens his mouth to respond, but Lance beats him to it.

“Can you wait like another week and a half?”

She blinks, frowning. “I guess I’ve waited this long…”

He nods. “Then done.” noticing the look Keith was giving him, he clarifies. “Post-midterm party. We used to do it every year, perfect chance.”

“Well I’m never gonna say no to a party,” she smirks. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an ex to go torment…”

Just as she starts to head back toward the entrance, Keith snorts. “That sounds depressing.”

She turns back toward him. “Oh, you don’t even know. My old system was popping into existence when I’d pass by his friends on the street, and then brushing past them casually and disappearing again when I’d turn a corner. They’d always be like ‘Rolo, I swear I saw a girl that looked just like Nyma on the street the other day!’. It would freak him out so much.”

At the incredulous look on both Lance and Keith’s faces, Nyma shrugs.

“What? I said there needed to be reinforcement of your existence, not positive reinforcement. Anyway, it worked until I got too cocky, and by then it was too late for me to appear. Not for long, though.” she winks at Lance. “Bye guys.”

Lance watches her go, standing next to Keith. Neither of them move for a couple seconds.

“... What do you think he did to her?”

“I don’t wanna know,” Keith replies. Lance nods.

“Yeah... Me either. Well, anyway, let’s go wake up Pidge and see if anything Nyma told us was true. Maybe being around them will help a little bit.”

“If she wasn’t completely lying? Yeah, maybe.” Keith starts toward the entrance. “Hopefully they didn’t wake up already.”

“Oh, trust me,” Lance says, following Keith, “It’s midterms and they’re asleep in a cafe. They didn’t wake up from probably the only sleep they’ve gotten in a week.”

Sure enough, Pidge and their laptop both are asleep and unharmed. Lance digs around in his pocket for a moment, pulling out a pen and grinning at Keith.

“Dare me to stick this in their ear to wake them up?”

“Lance, no.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo! Late chapter is very late.
> 
> (AKA midterms are coming up and I just got my job back at Gamestop, I'm sorry.)
> 
> I feel like I could just write fluffy chapters between these two for a million years, but plot must happen at some point. Probably. Nyma's explanation is going to be boiled down to simpler terms later on, along with more of an example, but there you go.
> 
> Thanks for always reading, guys. You're all hot stuff.
> 
> edit: oh no! all of my italics have disappeared. please be gentle with me until i can add them back in.


	13. The New Furniture of Lance Sanchez

_Some_ things, Lance supposes, have a way of coming back around. To chart it out on a graph: like a circle. Start at Point A, make your way all around the ghosts and make-out sessions and new apartments, and you end up right back at Point A.

Point A being the cafe, of course.

“... So, what you’re saying is…” Hunk turns his piece of paper he was scribbling on over to Lance, pushing it across the table. “Keith needs attention, to thrive like a plant, which he gets from us, by hanging out?”

Lance looks over the drawing. It’s… Kind of crude, to be honest, but also somehow cute? A stick-figure version of Keith is in the middle of the page, surrounded by poorly-drawn renditions of Lance, Hunk and Pidge, sending what looked like… Lightning bolts toward Keith, zig-zagging across the paper to the center.

“Aw, Hunk,” Lance says, “If this didn’t look vaguely like a kindergartener’s rendition of a bizarre cult ritual I’d consider keeping it. Look at Keith’s mullet!”

“Give me that.” Keith says, making a lunge for it. Lance holds it out of the way, shaking his head.

“Uh-uh. No floating papers in public, remember? You’re still invisible.”

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t _quite_ a perfect circle. Keith hadn’t been here the last time he was here with Pidge and Hunk. But whatever, Lance had never said he was an artist and everyone knows only artists can draw perfect circles.

Keith huffs and flops back down into the chair that probably looks totally unoccupied to everyone else. Ha.

“Thanks,” Hunk replies, taking the drawing back from Lance. “The little zigzags represent our love and affection toward Keith.”

Lance peaks back over at the drawing. “So that’s why I have more lightning bolts zapping him? Aw, _bro_.”

“You know it, bro.”

“ _Bro…_ ”

“ _Br_ \--”

Pidge slams their hands onto the table, bringing them all back to reality. “ _Anyway_. Why hasn’t Keith reappeared then, is the real question here. Right?”

“Could have something to do with time,” Hunk suggests, “When we first met Keith, we couldn’t see him--and even when we could, it was a gradual thing.”

“So he’s like… a battery that needs recharging.” Pidge says. Hunk shrugs.

“I mean, um. I can’t really think of a better metaphor.”

Keith makes an agitated noise. “And what if Nyma wasn’t even telling the truth about any of it? We don’t know this girl from anywhere.” he snaps, his words reaching absolutely no one except for Lance. Lance furrows his eyebrows.

“We don’t any other choice, do we? She seems to know better than any of us.”

Hunk and Pidge exchange glances.

“Yeah, well, _you’re_ the ghost whisperer! Shouldn’t you know things like this?” Keith crosses his arms in front of his chest and glares. Lance mirrors him.

“And _you’re_ the ghost!”

“I had _amnesia_.”

Lance opens his mouth to say something else, but Pidge cuts him off swiftly. “If you guys are going to argue, could you at least be a little more lowkey? People are starting to stare, Lance.”

 _Oh_. It’s easy to forget when he’s already so used to Keith being visible. With a sigh, he sinks into his seat to avoid everyone’s gaze. They’d stop looking eventually.

“Sorry. Still not used to it.” He pops his neck, rolling his head from one side to the other. “Anyway, I guess time can only tell. Hopefully by the party he’ll be visible again.”

Hunk hums in agreement. “Yeah. I, for one, cannot wait for midterms to be over. This party will be a welcome end to it all.”

“You’re telling me,” Pidge nods, “I always wonder why you dropped out, Lance, but midterms make me consider it too.”

“I didn’t drop out because of _midterms_ , Pidge.” Lance rolls his eyes, “And maybe if you had a cool job like me, you could drop out too.”

They make a face. “Pass.”

“Anyway.” Hunk interrupts, an obvious attempt to change the subject that’s not even being disguised. “It’s not really so much of a party as it is a gathering, right? There’s only like… Five of us…”

“Hunk, please. You’re underestimating my ability to throw a kick-ass party regardless of the amount of people there.” Lance smirks. “Even if two of the people are dead. _That’s_ how you know it’s really good.”

“I don’t think _ghosts in attendance_ is a measurement of how exciting a party is.” Pidge says. Before Lance can respond with anything even _less_ witty, they open their laptop back up again. “And I’d like to have something _good_ to celebrate at the party, like some _A’s_ , so…”

Lance stands up abruptly, the chair nearly toppling over behind him.

“Say no more. You guys study away; me and Keith have epic party plans to make.”

Hunk waves. “Have fun, guys.”

“I mean, I’d say the same thing to you two but you’re both studying.” Lance shoots them both fingerguns. “So instead: kick some test-butt!”

Hunk returns the fingerguns as Pidge glances up from their laptop and grins.

“You know it.”

 

* * *

 

In retrospect, it really shouldn’t have been _that_ surprising that Nyma found out where Lance lives. What was more surprising, was the fact that she had found out where he lived _and_ made it there before they did.

 

She’s leaned up against the outside of the apartment door, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. Vacant, spaced out eyes come to life when she hears the footsteps approaching.

“Oh, took you guys long enough.” a grin crosses her face as she pulls her hand away, letting the blond hair fall back onto her shoulder. Lance blinks.

“How did you get here?” Keith asks, before Lance can even think of which question to ask her first as _How-When-Why_ flit through his mind. Nyma shrugs.

“Probably the same way you got here. Walking? By bus? Unless you’re asking how I _found_ this place,” she pauses, leaning forward toward Keith. “And for that, I’ll tell you that you can find out _a lot_ of information, being invisible. Try it sometime.”

Keith furrows his eyebrows in confusion, but Nyma only moves out of the way of the door. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to interrupt whatever you two get up to in the confines of your own home.” she grins. “Just here to see if a rumor I heard was true.”

“Rumor?” Lance questions, fishing his apartment key out of his pocket. She nods.

“Just open the door.”

Lance could feel the unease rolling off of Keith in waves. He couldn’t necessarily blame him-- _how_ did she get his address?--but Nyma had been nothing but helpful and… _Relatively_ straight-forward with them.

Also, ghosts weren’t like vampires. Right? They can’t come in unless invited in?

He unlocks the door and opens it, and immediately her face falls. He gestures for her to enter, but Nyma shakes her head.

“Okay, no. I’ve seen enough.” she pinches the bridge of her nose. “When I read that this was your first apartment, fresh out of college, I thought _maybe_ you wouldn’t have any furniture, but…”

“Hey!” Lance says, crossing his arms in front of him. “I mean, it’s charming! It’s a bachelor pad! Keith, back me up.”

Keith looks away from him. “Cardboard isn’t a table, Lance.”

Lance gasps, scandalized and in utter disbelief. How _dare_ he be ganged up on by two ghosts?

Nyma finally moves past him and into the living room. She scrunches her nose up, eyes moving across the limited space. “Are those the little tree thingies that people put in their _cars_?”

“It smells good!” he says, voice cracking as he follows her into his own apartment. Keith trails just behind him.

Nyma, apparently having seen enough, turns back toward him. “You can’t have a party here. You have a couch, a TV, and some cardboard.”

“You can cram like four people onto that couch!” Lance points out. “We’ve done it before.”

“It’s a loveseat.” she says, dryly, before moving back toward the door. “I mean, I can’t tell you what to do, but at least think about buying some more chairs.”

Lance stares at her, dejected. She stops for a moment, idling in the doorway.  
“I mean, don’t look so put-out! It’s really not a cute look on you.” Nyma pauses, face shifting from concerned, to… _Devious_. “... I _mean_ , I’m just trying to make a suggestion. How can you throw an _awesome, epic_ party if no one has anywhere to sit?”

Lance’s eyes widen. Keith glances between him and Nyma, frown growing more and more.

“Anyway,” she continues, sending them both a wave before turning back around. “I’ll see you boys later, right?”

“I--Wait! You came by just to check on my furniture?” Lance questions. She blinks and shrugs.

“Something like that. Or maybe I was checking on something else, too.”

And with a final, coy smile, she’s gone. The door shuts behind her, and Lance turns back to stare at the couch.

There’s a stretched out moment of silence.

“... I mean, I guess she has a point.” Lance finally says, sighing sadly. “Goodbye, bachelor pad.”

“It doesn’t have to be made out of cardboard to be a bachelor pad.” Keith replies. “I don’t like the way she had to _play you_ to make you figure it out, but it would be way better if there was more than one place to sit.”

Lance sends him the best puppy-dog eyes he can muster up. “Do you hate the car-freshener pine trees too?”

“... I think there are more efficient ways to make an apartment smell good.” he admits, carefully wording his sentence. Lance sighs and moves toward the couch, slumping down onto it.

“I was totally saving up for a Playstation VR, but I guess new furniture is cool too.”

Keith sits down next to him. “I don’t know what that is, but I doubt it’s more important than an actual coffee table.”

Lance sighs, propping his feet up onto the cardboard box in front of them for what might be the last time. “Man, does this mean I have to get rid of my mini-fridge?”

“I think the mini-fridge is fine.” he pauses. “You know, if you have some left over money maybe we can buy some posters.”

Lance looks at Keith, grin snaking across his face. “ _Aw_ , babe, you wanna turn this house into a home? And go furniture shopping with me? That’s so _domestic_ ,” he coos. Keith gives him a playful shove.

“Yeah, shopping in a Target is _so_ romantic.” he rolls his eyes, but Lance’s eyebrows shoot up nearly into his hairline.

“You mean you’ve never had a department store date? Keith.” he reaches over to wrap his arm around Keith’s, giving him a deathly serious look. “That’s _tragic_.”

“ _Truly_.” Keith replies, the words sarcastic but not mean-spirited. “Guess you’ll just have to show me the light tomorrow.”

Lance grins, then leans his head onto Keith’s shoulder, releasing the his arm. Keith clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

“Lance. How did Nyma find your apartment?”

Lance frowns. “ _Ookay_ , sudden topic change. I don’t know. A better question is how did she find out I went to college?” he hums thoughtfully. “She must do a lot of information digging.”

Keith is silent. Lance nudges him, pulling away for a moment. “Hey, you alright?”

Keith blinks, frowning. “Yeah-- I, uh.” he blinks at Lance, running a hand through his hair and standing up. Lance sends him a concerned look, but Keith shakes his head.

“I just don’t trust her. I’m gonna go take a walk and clear my head.”

He leaves Lance staring at the door in confusion as he exits.

 

* * *

 

“So is this a date,” Keith starts, the next day as they browse through the store. 2PM on a weekday means that, thankfully, it’s mostly abandoned aside from a few workers walking around, “Or or a mandatory furniture shopping trip?”

“Obviously you aren’t open-minded enough if the two things have to be exclusive.” Lance grins. “I could go find you some fake flowers to make it more _official_ , though.”

“And I couldn’t even carry them around,” Keith tacks on, as they pass by the bathroom decor section. Department store furniture may not be the _highest_ quality, but _hey_ , whatever got the job done. “Unless you really want to freak some workers out.”

Lance looks like he’s legitimately considering it, for a moment.

“That’s a joke, by the way. I’m not going to do that.”

Lance looks only _slightly_ put-out.

“Do you think I could get away with buying only bean-bags? I could buy those extra large ones, and then Hunk could sit on one side and Pidge could sit on the other.” Lance asks, thoughtfully, as they finally reach the aisle they’re looking for.

(None of these chairs, Keith notes, look all that comfortable.)

“Probably not going to work for a table.” Keith replies, walking over to a lounge chair. “What about this thing? It looks pretty cheap and… Easy to bring back home.”

Lance follows his line of sight, moving to stand next to Keith. A display of oval lounge chairs in various colors sat on display, some of them looking… Really fuzzy. Pajama-pants levels of fuzzy.

“I like it.” Lance says, nodding his head in approval. “A step up from bean-bag, but not too classy that I’m paying over fifty dollars for it.”

“Please don’t buy the weird furry one.” Keith reaches down to run his fingers over it, pulling back with a disgusted face. “It’s kind of freaking me out.”

“I’m offended you even think I’d want to.” Lance says, shooting him a fake glare before picking up a box with a navy-blue _normal_ fabric-covered chair printed on it. “ _Obviously_ , I am a man of higher class than that.”

“You put up car air-fresheners all over your house.”

Lance scoffs. “You’re saying that as if it’s a bad thing. Those things practically lasted _forever_ , okay?”

“So you admit you can’t even smell them anymore.” Keith raises an eyebrow, grin on his face. “Finally. Let’s go buy _normal_ air freshener.”

In the end, they ended up with two of the lounge chairs, one _some-assembly-required_ coffee table that Lance was sure he’d end up spending five hours trying to put together, and a few candles that, tragically, _didn’t_ smell like pine fresh woods.

(That was a little bit sad, but Lance would get used to it.)

He lazily pushes the cart as they make their way toward checkout, not in too much of a hurry. Lance had the day off, but the next few were all full-work days, and then there was the party after. A busy week for sure--not necessarily in a _bad_ way--but still in a way that made him want to savor his day off.

An aisle catches Lance’s eye, and he comes to an abrupt stop. If Keith had been walking behind him instead of beside him, he probably would have ran straight into Lance. Instead, Lance reaches over to tap Keith’s shoulder excitedly.

“Keith,” he hisses, pointing in the direction of the aisle. It’s like a red and green explosion. “Keith, _Christmas_ stuff.”

Keith blinks in confusion as Lance whips the cart around to make a beeline right for it. “It’s not even-- It’s not even _Halloween_ yet!”

“Like stores even care about that anymore!” Lance scoffs as he pushes the cart through, looking around excitedly. “And you haven’t seen anything. This is only one aisle. Just wait until after _Thanksgiving_ , when half the store turns into this.”

The aisle is messy and unorganized--an obvious indicator that it was still a work in progress that a ton of people had already trekked through. Eagerly, Lance shifts through the objects.

“Ooh, ornaments.” Lance beams, picking up a red glass ball and showing it to Keith. “We should get a tree! Real or fake?”

“Can we focus on at least getting to _November_ before we start asking questions like that?” Keith says, but a smile playing at the corner of his lips betrays him. Lance smirks.

“Come on Keith, I see that smile. It is _never_ too early to get into the holiday spirit.” he puts the ball back down and turns toward the other side of the aisle, eyes suddenly lighting up.

“No. _Way_.”

“What?”

Instead of answering him immediately, Lance turns away for a brief moment. He grabs an object from a spot on the shelf and bends down, obviously in an attempt to hide whatever he’s up to from Keith. Before Keith can move closer, though, Lance pops back up and grins at him smugly.

He has a headband on, candy-cane stripes decorating it all the way to the wire jutting out the top, curving down to just in front of Lance’s forehead. At the end, is some _very_ poorly made fake mistletoe.

“Keith,” Lance starts, stretching his arms out to either side. The mistletoe sways with his movements. “I’m sure you know the rules.”

Lance can’t tell from Keith’s face, whether he’s going to bust out laughing or attempt to rip the headband off and throw it across the store. He does another quick glance to make sure nobody’s in the aisle, and makes a step toward Keith.

Keith doesn’t move, neither backward or forward, and doesn’t _say_ anything either. The way the corners of his mouth are twitching upward, Lance has a feeling that if he opened his mouth he might laugh so hard he wouldn’t be able to control it. In retaliation, Lance puts on the most serious face he can muster while wearing a mistletoe headband and moves closer, wrapping his arms around Keith’s shoulders.

“Oh, look at that,” he says, casually, when their faces are just inches apart. “It’s _very_ convenient mistletoe.”

Keith, finally able to stabilize himself enough to speak, lets out a small snort. “That’s-- _Very_ convenient indeed.”

And then Lance closes the gap between them, pressing their lips together. It’s for sure a really strange sight to anyone else, a man wearing a mistletoe headband kissing thin air in the middle of a department store, but for once the universe agrees with him and nobody sees their little moment except for the two of them.

Keith can’t help that he’s smiling into the kiss, and finally when the mistletoe brushes against the top of his head he breaks it and swats at the fake plant, laughing.

“That’s terrible design,” he says, laughing as Lance jerks his head away so the mistletoe isn’t in Keith’s hair anymore. Lance pulls off the headband and looks at it seriously.

“I’m buying this.”

 

* * *

 

The days go by uneventfully, for once. The furniture gets put up, the car air-fresheners taken down, candles lit in their place.

(“Rest in peace,” Lance says as he lights the first candle, as if it’s being done in memory of the little trees that littered his home only a few hours ago. Keith rolls his eyes, but lights a candle next to it. Lance’s eyes practically _sparkle_.

“ _I knew you cared for them_!”)

Lance struggles for hours with the table, until he finally calls Hunk, who gets it done in thirty minutes. Lance goes to work, Keith picks up his new hobby--retro video games emulated on his phone--and not much changes.

Including the fact that he’s still not visible.

When Lance comes home the day of the party, he sets a few grocery bags full of snacks down and flops onto the couch, practically crowding Keith off.

“Allura said she and Shiro would be over at 7,” he says, flopping his head onto Keith’s shoulder. “And Hunk and Pidge said 6:30. Ish. Who knows when Nyma will be here. But she knows where I live so I don’t have to worry about that? I guess?”

“Hello to you too,” Keith grunts.

“Standard greetings are overrated.” Lance replies, with a slight shrug. “Wanna help me get all this food ready?”

And after the chips are poured into a bowl and queso is being made, Pidge and Hunk are indeed the first ones to arrive at 6:25PM, which makes Lance’s estimate of 6:30 _ish_ pretty damn accurate. There are greetings, even to Keith, and despite all of the attention, he still feels--nothing. Exactly the same, still invisible.

(He’s wearing Lance’s blue hoodie, though, the oversized one he had tossed at Lance what seems like _lifetimes_ ago, so everyone knows where he is. It’s a lot less embarassing now.)

Allura and Shiro are next, exactly 35 minutes later when they said they’d be. Lance doesn’t think he’s ever seen Allura late to work, not even once. It’s oddly fitting for her to not be late to a party, either.

And then, the only one who isn’t there is Nyma.

“So,” Lance starts, when everyone else is settled in the living room, “As you may have noticed, Keith is invisible again, which is okay because we’re learning some… Interesting stuff about how ghosts work. And we think it’s temporary. Probably.”

“Probably?” Keith questions out loud. Lance sends him a sheepish smile, and continues,

“And, _anyway_ , besides coming to celebrate the end of midterms, we also wanted to introduce you to another ghost! That we met! That isn’t here right now?”

Everyone only blinks at him in confusion.

“Another ghost?” Allura questions, causing Shiro to nod, in agreement with her confusion.

“Keith never mentioned anything about knowing any other ghosts.”

Keith snorts. Yeah, because talking about Nyma was just his favorite thing to do.

“Yeah, well, you’re all going to get to meet her tonight!” Lance responds, brightly. “... If she ever shows up!”

And then, as if summoned, at exactly 7:08PM, Nyma enters the building.

The sound of her voice causes Lance and Keith to whip their head toward her, but everyone else doesn’t notice until she shuts the door behind her. “Can’t believe you were going to start _without_ me.”

She sends Lance a serene smile, all but ignoring Keith as she makes her way toward the center of the room to stand next to him. Flicking a piece of hair over her shoulder, she looks at him expectantly.

“... Going to introduce me?” she finally asks, when Lance continues to stare at her. He opens his mouth, and then shuts it and turns back to the group.

“Uh, right-- Of course! Everyone, this is Nyma. Keith, can you--?”

Lance turns toward Keith, but Nyma is already there, taking the whiteboard from him. He doesn’t say anything, but watches her carefully as she picks up the board and sends him a wink.

Everyone watches, silently, as the whiteboard seemingly floats to the center of the room. Curly handwriting appears on it, letter by letter, before she flips it over and turns it out to face the group.

“ _ **Hi, everyone**_.”

Allura gasps.

“Oh, such pretty handwriting!” she says, leaning forward on the couch. Somehow, Allura being more amazed by the handwriting than an actual, physical ghost isn’t even surprising. Shiro lets out a shaky laugh next to her, and Hunk and Pidge both look varying shades of interested. Nyma gives a sweet smile to Allura, despite the fact that it can’t be seen.

She wipes away at her previous message and writes again:

“ _ **Thank you!**_ _ **♥ Can I know everyone’s names?**_ ”

“Oh, of course!” Allura replies, brightly. “I’m Allura, and this is my fiancee Shiro. Ooh, can ghosts see other ghosts? If you know Keith, this is Keith’s older brother.” she gestures toward Shiro, and the smile on Nyma’s face doesn’t falter for a second.

Lance has a weird feeling that she already knew that information.

“You can call me Pidge,” Pidge says, from their spot by Hunk’s feet. Hunk speaks up next.

“And I’m Hunk.”

In the other lounge chair, across from Hunk and Pidge, Lance sees Keith narrow his eyes.

“And you know me and Keith.” Lance ends. Nyma turns the board back to herself again.

“ _ **Nice to meet you all. So… Where’s the party at? ;)**_ ”

And then, as easy as that, they all knew each other.

Introductions were easier than Lance had expected, considering Nyma had mostly taken care of the situation herself. It was obvious she had already had this all planned out--but that didn’t necessarily mean anything to Lance. It was her idea in the first place, of course she already knew exactly what she was after. With the way she went to talk to everyone right after, it was clear she was wasting no time in her goal.

But judging by the look on Keith’s face, he didn’t quite hold the same sentiment.

“Hey,” Lance says as he approaches Keith, who’s still sulking in the chair. “Pouting over the fact she has your whiteboard?”

“I’m not _pouting_ ,” Keith says, scowling up at Lance. “I don’t trust her, so I’m watching her.”

“You are pouting.” Lance shakes his head. “I know you don’t trust her, but think about how open she’s been. I mean, if she was going to hide something from us, I think it would have been maybe that whole thing about _stalking her ex_.”

“Unless she’s hiding something worse.” Keith points out. Lance sighs.

“I think you’re just mad about the whiteboard.”

“I have a phone I can use.”

“Well Shiro’s been glancing over here, so I hope that’s because you’re having a text conversation with him and not just because you’re ignoring him so you can sulk.” Lance says. As if on cue, Keith’s phone buzzes and Lance can see Shiro look over toward them.

“We _are_ having a conversation.” Keith says, crossing his arms in front of himself. Lance rolls his eyes.

“Okay, well, I’m going to go turn on some music and then join their conversation with Nyma. You can sit here and pout and be suspicious, or you can come join in because I’m sure everyone’s curious about you.”

“And type out everything while you guys have a conversation where you’re talking nonstop?” he frowns. “I’ll pass.”

“Your loss.” Lance says, with a shrug, because if there’s one thing he’s learned about Keith spending all this time with him, it’s that he’s _stubborn_.

Keith looks back down to send Shiro a text back as Lance leaves, scowling to himself. At least no one else can see his face and come give him a lecture. Lance turns some music on, low enough that it doesn’t interrupt their conversation, and he hears Lance’s loud voice greet everyone as he enters their group conversation.

He’s just finishing up his response, hitting send when a feminine cough brings him out of his focus. He glances up and narrows his eyes as Nyma looks down at him, grin on her face.

“Eh- _hem_. I think I’m good now, for awhile at least--so if you wanted to learn how to be visible and invisible at will, here’s your chance.” she says, hands resting on her hips, cocked to one side. The whiteboard is laying abandoned on the couch, so she must have told them she was going somewhere. Everyone else stands in their circle near the kitchen, chatting.

“Tell me how it works, first,” he says, because he’s never been a particularly cautious person, but he’s not stupid either. She scrunches up her nose in thought.

“I mean, I can try, but it’s more something you have to feel. You kind of have to focus your energy across your whole body. I start from the bottom, and work my way to the top. It’s easier if you close your eyes.”

Keith raises an eyebrow. “And how do I know you’re not lying to me?”

She makes a _tsk_ ing noise. “What would I even gain from lying to you? Fine. You want an example?”

Before he can answer, Nyma closes her eyes as her eyebrows furrow, mouth twitching downward. She definitely looks focused, for sure. Keith watches, patiently.

Finally, she opens up her eyes again and looks smug.

“You look the same to me,” Keith points out. Nyma frowns, looking more annoyed than anything.

“I know it might kill you--but oh wait, you’re already dead. Just _trust me_.”

“This better be how it works.” Keith says, sending her one last suspicious glare. She rolls her eyes.

“Believe it or not, I do have better things to do with my time than make fun of you.”

Deciding not to waste his breath with another remark toward her, Keith closes his eyes and tries to… Do whatever the hell focus your energy meant.

Surprisingly, it comes easy enough. He still didn’t have much of a clue what was happening, or how, but he could feel it working--from bottom, to top, just like she had said.

It’s kind of hard to keep focused, but he manages to do it anyway, until he’s at the very top of his head.

And then--

It’s done.

When he opens his eyes, Nyma looks pleased to the point of almost looking smug.

“Like a true natural.” she says, and then laughs. “But with a teacher like me, who wouldn’t be? If you wanna go back invisible, you just do the same thing. It takes a couple seconds though, and focus, so don’t think you can just blip in and out of existence in a pinch.” she warns. He raises an eyebrow.

“Personal experience?”

“None of your business, more like.” she says, but there’s no bite to her words. It’s just stated as a pure fact. Still, he narrows his eyes.

A quick glance to the rest of the group tells him that they’re preoccupied with each other again. Keith’s voice is low when he turns back to her and responds, “Pretty ironic coming from someone who hunted down someone else’s address.”

She smiles. “And that’s not the only thing I found out, Keith Shirogane. When you’re invisible, there’s _no_ information or files anywhere that are off-limits.”

Keith freezes as she continues, “Including medical files, you know. Not that I needed those to put two and two together, given _when_ you died, and h--”

“ _I died_ from smoke inhalation,” he interrupts. “ _I died_ saving my baby brother from a fire.”

Her face morphs from cocky and calculated, to something else entirely. “Keith, I’m not your enemy. I’m not a _good_ person, by any standards, before _or_ after I died, but I’m not out to make your post-life hell.” he opens his mouth to interrupt, but she continues, “My point in telling you all this, was to let you know that the information is out there. And something tells me that there’s a lot of people here who are important to you, that don’t know.”

Keith tongues the inside of his cheek. “And is it really relevant? Why bring it up _now_?”

She levels him with a serious look.

“I don’t know, Keith. Do _you_ think it’s relevant? Some things are easier to hear from the source, and trust me when I say that _I_ know, that even if you’ve been buried, the secrets that you kept aren’t always safe from being unearthed.”

That only brings up a million more questions for Keith--but he looks up at her, silent and serious, as she stares right back at him.

And then their moment is shattered. Keith knew it was going to happen soon--Shiro and Lance had both been glancing their way periodically, though Shiro was the only one who could tell if he was visible or not anyway.

“Keith!” he hears Shiro say, and then everyone else is turning their head. And there’s a lot of commotion, but Lance is there, hugging him, and Shiro is too, and then it’s practically a giant group hug. He can see Nyma, pulled into it unwillingly, and her own shocked face at being part of this already-established friend groups mass-hug.

And maybe, Keith thinks, just maybe she’s not completely in everything just for herself.

 

* * *

 

Nyma is the last to arrive and the first to leave, not too long after being swept up into the group-hug.

“I’ll see you all again, probably,” she says, and Keith doesn’t know whether he should be upset at the idea of seeing her again, or happy about it. “But I can’t keep up this form for too long, so I should probably get going!”

Lance opens the door for her as she leaves, and then moves back toward Keith. “Was it just me, or was she acting weird?”

“Like I’d know.” he replies, with a shrug. But he does know what Lance means.

Nobody else leaves, for a couple more hours, and Keith does his best to be sociable--at least for Shiro’s sake. But, finally, 11PM rolls around and Allura and Shiro leave too.

Pidge and Hunk debate spending the night again, but after the fiasco that was Harry Potter night, decide against it. Keith stares out the window as Lance says goodnight to them around 2AM, so spaced out that he doesn’t even notice Lance until he’s already sitting next to him, having scooted the other chair all the way across the room.

“Nyma wasn’t the only one being weird,” Lance says, jerking Keith out of his thoughts. He raises his eyebrows at Lance’s words, but doesn’t say anything else. Lance continues, “What did you two talk about, anyway?”

Keith is silent for a moment. “Nothing. She just showed me how to turn back and forth between invisible and not.”

Lance makes a thoughtful noise, like he’s not sure if he believes Keith or not, but doesn’t press the issue. Instead, he rests his head on the glass and focuses his attention out. Keith follows his gaze.

“Was the city this bright back when you lived?” Lance asks. Keith gives a small laugh.

“It was 30 years ago, not 200. It was still a big city, even in the 80s.”

Lance nods, humming. “Yeah, I figured. Can’t hurt to ask, though.”

“How’s your foot, by the way.”

Lance yawns. “I think it only hurt me for a few minutes the _entire_ day. It’s amazing, how the human body heals itself. _Naturally_. No doctors needed.”

Keith scoffs. “Yeah, whatever. I’ll believe you though.”

Keith leans his own head against the glass, too, although his attention is now on Lance. Lance, who’s eyes reflect the city light, who’s visibly starting to doze off already, face smushed against the cold glass of a window in October.

He doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t need to. The stretched out silence between them is more than comfortable: it’s right, and he thinks, watching Lance completely fall asleep in a cheap chair they had bought together less than a week ago--

That maybe, Nyma might be right.

He gets up and drapes a blanket over Lance, before moving him slightly away from the window. His head lolls back into a more comfortable position, and unconsciously, he snuggles deeper into the blanket with a little satisfied noise.

Keith kisses his forehead and turns off the living room lights, settling down onto the couch to text Shiro back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys!!! long time no see. I swear i've been consistently working on this chapter since i posted the last one, it's just been... a long couple of weeks.
> 
> on a WAY EXCITING NOTE, I GOT FANART!!! FOR THIS FIC!!! PEOPLE DREW STUFF OF MY FIC???? #GOALS???
> 
> karploop drew [this lovely piece of art](http://karpoart.tumblr.com/post/152771153470/voltron-positivity-week-day-5-fanart-for), definitely check it out, i'm still screaming about it
> 
> lanceytown [drew the polaroid of Keith and li'l baby Shiro](https://lanceytown.tumblr.com/post/154701332375/lanceytown-the-polaroid-of-keith-shirogane), which is so cute and perfect. Like he looked right into my head!!
> 
> and finally, tina drew [these two amazing pictures, one of the apartment](http://theklancet.tumblr.com/post/152521744116/lances-apartment-from-six-feet-over-by-freshias) (before it got a makeover, lol) [and one of Lance and Keith being cute.](http://theklancet.tumblr.com/post/152521864915/inspired-by-chapter-8-of-six-feet-over-lol-sorry) It's perfect and amazing. both of them. they're even ANIMATED
> 
> if you drew me fanart and i didn't just link to it, let me know because that means that i probably didn't see it and i REALLY WANT TO SEE IT. getting fanart drawn of your fanfics is like..... every fanfic authors number one dream. seriously. so let me know at my [tumblr @freshias](http://isabelmagnolia.co.vu/) or [my twitter @yordlecompstomp](https://twitter.com/yordlecompstomp) (where you're also welcome to just talk with me about this fic or even just voltron in general, because i love all of u guys)
> 
> you guys are all so awesome. thank you for being patient and so nice!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Over, Under, and Six Feet Sideways](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12672759) by [konekat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/konekat/pseuds/konekat)




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